Governor: The Inestimable Palindrome of Grenopia
WA Delegate (non-executive): The Alpine Kingdom of The Soviet state of Svalbard (elected )
Founder: The Inestimable Palindrome of Grenopia
Last WA Update:
Embassies: United States of America, The Region That Has No Big Banks, The Order of the Grey Wardens, Official European Union, The Great Universe, 0000, Bus Stop, The Great Experiment, and The Empire of Kierania.
Tags: Anti-Fascist, Featured, Large, Map, Neutral, Offsite Chat, Role Player, Serious, Social, and Video Game.
Regional Power: Moderate
Northern Utopia contains 51 nations, the 423rd most in the world.
Today's World Census Report
The Most Subsidized Industry in Northern Utopia
Nations ranked highly spend the most on developing and supporting industry, a practice known as 'corporate welfare.'
As a region, Northern Utopia is ranked 3,823rd in the world for Most Subsidized Industry.
![]() | Nation | WA Category | Motto | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1. | ![]() | Scandinavian Liberal Paradise | “Better dead than a weeb” | |
2. | ![]() | Left-wing Utopia | “Gefðu mér lýðræði eða gefðu mér dauða” | |
3. | Scandinavian Liberal Paradise | “Cer ńotaizekik ici'ījaiko.” | ||
4. | ![]() | Mother Knows Best State | “Of Lands Paved with Gold” | |
5. | ![]() | Psychotic Dictatorship | “NB” | |
6. | ![]() | Inoffensive Centrist Democracy | “Cry if you need to, but don't run away from living.” | |
7. | Psychotic Dictatorship | “Utopia” | ||
8. | ![]() | Civil Rights Lovefest | “Novus Ordos” | |
9. | Father Knows Best State | “The Republic Stands Strong” | ||
10. | ![]() | Left-wing Utopia | “Peace, Protection, Prosperity” |
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Regional Happenings
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The Lýðræðissamband of The European Emmirates arrived from Aros Elyium.
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The People's Republic of The Commune State of Khong-Bang arrived from Osiris.
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The Inestimable Palindrome of Grenopia updated the World Factbook entry.
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The Inestimable Palindrome of Grenopia updated the World Factbook entry.
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The Inestimable Palindrome of Grenopia updated the World Factbook entry.
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The Inestimable Palindrome of Grenopia updated the World Factbook entry.
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The Constitutional Monarchy of The United Kingdom of Bahnreich arrived from Lazarus.
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The Colony of Edens Rebirth arrived from Lazarus.
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The Queendom of Haewon arrived from Osiris.
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The Department of Abnormalities arrived from Balder.
Northern Utopia Regional Message Board

Έναρξη νέας εποχής
Location: NESDEC HQ - USNE Skywalker Sector
Date: September 10th, 2023 (09/10/23)
Official Announcement
NESDEC Officials have come forward to announce what they call "history in the making", reporters from all over the country and some from other nations are present in order to provide coverage of this announcement which was being held in a pretty large metallic room with the flag of the United States handing on 2 walls off to the side. There was a moment of speaking and preparation before the officials would arrive, they wore black and yellow uniforms somewhat similar to naval uniforms however modified, along with them was a group of soldiers wearing both familiar and unfamiliar armor who stood off to either side of the podium. However the center of attention was a woman who walked up to the podium, this was leader of NESDEC Director Athena Athanas, she were a similar uniform to those behind her however hers had a gleaming blue insignia on her shoulders "Ω", an ebony skinned woman with curly black hair that had a subtle shine, her eyes was a piercing silver color, once there she would stand straight drawing the attention of everyone in the room. With that gained, she began to speak.
"Thank you all for coming, to cut to the chase we have decided that now is the time to confirm any rumors or suspicion. By this year on this date, NESDEC, and by extension the United States has successfully established a permanent and stable colony on Bahram. the room went into a flurry of questions from the reporters immediately wanting to get some information about this event. After all it's not every day ones successfully settle another planet, however the Director raised her hand to silence the reporters, she was not finished. "The colony is now officially going by the nameΚατακτώ (Kataktó), in the historic sites of Crash Site Omaga & Beta, and for any who are unknowledgeable those sites are connected to the famous Bahramians who managed to survive on the planet for months with minimal supplies. Here will the metaphorical seed of civilization on Bahram, for both the Electrican people, but also the rest of Utopia sometime in the future. She would pause allowing those in the room to collect their thoughts and prepare to ask questions. After a few minutes which saw he answering questions, she would continue with the announcement. However this is not the only announcement. With the introduction of this colonial era it is obvious that there will be a need for better security, and a better base in order to further our exploration and expansion throughout the solar system and beyond, so today will also be the official reveal of the Astral Defense Armada and the [b]Astral Task Force. The ASA will handle affairs concerning spacecraft, space travel, space construction, colonization, and the militarization of space, along with the management of US Astral Fleet's. The ATF will act as expeditionary and security force for the United States, along with acting as scouts both off and on extraterrestrial worlds.[/b]
As she says this 3 banners would appear, the first was the banner of the Iron Legion which sowed above the group standing off the the right of the podium, and to the left of the podium was the new force standing underneath the banner of the ATF, and above the middle was a banner of the ADA. Reporters in the room have varying reactions to this reveal, the militarization of space just as a new colony had been established on a new planet. This move could, no would cause an upset in the international community.
"Effective immediately they will be going public, and officially I will say that NESDEC will be tripling their efforts in space in order to expand our capabilities, what those are will have to wait. That is all."
The reporters went into a flurry of activity trying to pull any more information from the Director, however she and her group were the first to leave alongside the soldiers of both the Iron Legion and ATF. There was no going back now, NE's push into space must now be skyrocketed (pun intended) in order to create an edge and to fix their many problems planetside.
Will the succeed or fail? Only time will tell.
ESSLIB PLC - Economic Report: Q3.1, Current Year
Overview:
The economic landscape of ESSLIB PLC has shown remarkable improvements in the 15 days following the start of the third quarter (Q3). These developments reflect a proactive approach to addressing economic challenges and fostering growth and stability.
Key Economic Indicators:
- Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Growth: 7.5%
- Current GDP: IS 560 billion
- Unemployment Rate: 7.5%
- Inflation Rate: 3.8%
- Export Growth: 12.3%
- Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Inflows: Kr 16.2 billion
- Corporate Profits Growth: 15.2%
Economic Highlights:
- GDP Growth: ESSLIB PLC's GDP has expanded by 7.5%, reflecting the positive impact of economic reforms and investments in key sectors.
- Unemployment: The unemployment rate has decreased to 7.5%, indicating progress in job creation efforts and enhanced labor market conditions.
- Inflation: Inflation has moderated to 3.8%, alleviating some of the pressure on consumer purchasing power.
- Exports and FDI: Exports have surged by 12.3%, driven by increased demand for ESSLIB PLC's high-tech goods and manufactured products. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows have risen to Kr 16.2 billion, underscoring growing investor confidence.
- Corporate Profits: Corporate profits have grown substantially by 15.2%, primarily attributed to innovative strategies and improved efficiency within major corporations.
Positive Developments:
- Job Creation Initiatives: The major corporations have jointly initiated job creation programs, leading to a reduction in unemployment.
- Innovation and Technology: Investment in technology and innovation hubs has resulted in increased productivity and competitiveness.
Challenges and Ongoing Efforts:
- Inequality: Although progress has been made, addressing inequality remains an ongoing challenge, and further initiatives are needed.
- Environmental Impact: Continued efforts are required to ensure long-term environmental sustainability.
- Regulation and Oversight: Discussions on enhancing corporate regulation and oversight persist, aiming to prevent unethical practices.
- Social Welfare: Expanding and fine-tuning social welfare programs is crucial to further reducing disparities in society.
Economic growth, job creation, and investment have all seen positive momentum. However, the nation must remain vigilant in addressing persistent challenges such as inequality and environmental sustainability to secure a prosperous and equitable future. Further reforms and collaborative efforts between corporations will be pivotal in achieving these goals.
English Translation
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The Anston Times|#27
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Lacking Rubber
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Stores all across Gundun have found themselves in quite the conundrum. It has seemed that all of Gundun has found themselves in a rubber band shortage. Its quite unsure how this happened but the Government is pointing to a recent Tik Tak trend of seeing how many rubber bands it takes to explode a watermelon. As for now the price of the few remaining rubber bands has skyrocketed as popular influences attempt to get all the rubber bands they can to see how many bands it takes to crush a safe. Local Anston mom and internet hater Kelin Bosna has this to say:
"Theses darn kids! its all there fault for this rubber band shortage, if that stupid app with all its thingy ma jigs and doo dads was BANNED we would still have rubber bands for more important stuff like keeping those plastic sushi containers closed!"
As of now the Gundanian Government and Izlance himself has announced that they are actively trying to fix the rubber band shortage, this could take anywhere from a few days to a whole month.
==============
In Other News
================
The recent colonisation of Bahram by North Electrica has sparked interest in little kids across Gundun who "want to be an astronaut" when they grow up. Burger Queen, seeing the success of the Crazy Blueberry soda in
Middle Gertbland has decided to open new locations in other countries across Wasaru.
==============
AURORHEIM REPUBLIC ARMY, UNIT 707
2100 HOURS, STORTFJALL, TYRHALL
"We've gotten word from the top, new orders.
We're going back to our roots, I'm sure all of you are aware of
Vladimir Nikolaev?"
"The former communist dictator of Altikar now running for the presidency.
We don't expect him to win but, the fact he's still around is an issue
in and of itself. Our mission? Put him in permanent sleep."
"Don't expect any interference from anyone else, for all we know,
Nikolaev has fallen out of grace from the other socialists,
especially the Novoroyskans."
"The plan is simple, Nikolaev is holding a speech at the capital,
Tetsone where he's going to try to present himself as a person
people can vote for. This is where we come in."
"We'll be smuggling in a Republica Arms. LSR-95 Anti-Material Rifle.
Chambered in 50. BMG should be more than enough to take him out."
"Remember, Speed and Aggression Gentlemen."
4kms South of Tetsone, Altikar
External Security Operation
"For the Fatherland We Trust"
Aurorheim Republican Army Unit 707
"Ad Tyrannos Deducere"
Operation: Ember Echelon
Five men, all White Aurorans dressed in average attire drove through the streets of Vrapgas in a white van that had a pest control advertisement on the side. Two are in the front while the remaining three are in the back with several duffel bags each containing what seems like pest control equipment. However, one of them reached their hands into the duffel bag and they pulled out what seemed to be a rectangular object with a top handle. Not too long after that, the man unfolded it to reveal a Republica Arms. FMP-9 submachine gun chambered in 9x19mm Parabellum with a 32-round box magazine. He inspected the gun, pulling the charging handle back and forth multiple times before folding it and putting it back into the duffel bag.
"Gentlemen, we are nearing our destination, get yourself sorted and be ready to execute the operation." Said Cpt. Gudrun as PFC. Magnus woke up Pvt. Sigrun who had dozed off during the drive from Kerith.
"Our target is Vladimir Nikolaev, a Novoroyskan who was the leader of the Communist Party of Altikar during their tenure and still is the leader of the party. We have intel that he's going to be holding a speech in Tetsone to rack up the number of people voting for him. Considering the history between him and Altikar, suffice to say, he's up to no good." Said Cpt. Gudrun as he held a clipboard with a document detailing Nikolaev and several pictures of him paperclipped to it. Cpt. Gudrun handed it to the three men in the back as he continued to drive the van toward Tetsone.
"Remember, failure is not an option, we either kill him or leave empty-handed."
Tetsone, Altikar
2 HOURS LATER
707's van parked outside a tall hotel they grabbed the duffel bags in the back and headed toward the entrance of the hotel as they put the plan in motion, to kill Nikolaev. Wearing what appears to be a pesticide company's uniform with respirators, goggles, and a cap to fit with the uniform, they split off as three of them headed toward the hotel security room while the remaining two headed towards the elevator with a room key at hand. PFC. Magnus woke up Pvt. Sigrun entered the elevators and went toward the 12th floor whilst Cpt. Gudrun, Sgt. Stefan, and Cpl. Aron entered the employees-only section of the hotel, right toward the security room.
Magnus and Sigrun arrived at their floor they quickly left the elevator and headed toward their room with three duffel bags at hand. Arriving at the door, Sigrun opened the door as Magnus rushed in with Sigrun following suit both of them took off their respirators, goggles, and hats opened the two duffel bags, and pulled out parts of the bullpup, bolt-action LSR-95 and began assembling them. After about a few minutes, the LSR-95 was assembled as they loaded two 50. BMG rounds into a single magazine before loading a round into the chamber. Magnus grabbed the rifle from the carry handle before unfolding the bipods and setting it on top of a coffee table, in front of the balcony door which overlooked a stage where Nikolaev would be having his speech. Sigrun got out onto the balcony with a weather meter and a range finder on a tripod to determine the distance and the wind speed and direction. Sigrun relayed the information to Magnus and he adjusted his scope accordingly while Sigrun got out of the balcony and closed the balcony door partially, giving room for Magnus to take the shot as he pulled out binoculars to watch over the stage as a spotter.
Two Rooms Over on the Floor Above
Foreign Intelligence Directorate (UVR)
"In the Defense of the Motherland"
5th Special Purpose Brigade
Four men, all of them Novoroyskans are setting up their bullpup 12.7x108mm bolt-action anti-material rifle. Two stand guard with PP-90 foldable submachine guns while the other two assemble parts to finish getting their rifle together. Once done, Pvt. Barkov brought out a weather meter and a range finder much the same as the Aurorans a floor below with Cpl. Vasilevsky manned the KSVK while Sgt. Kosmol and Snr Sgt. Kastov stood guard near the door. Nikolaev had since fallen out of favor with Novoroyska as part of the reason they sent special forces to retrieve USSA's leadership during the Second Civil in Altikar was to... Well, silence them for good. Now? They were gonna finish moping up their mistakes. Nikolaev was the last spot of filth and dirt that needed to be cleaned and the 5th Special Purpose Brigade was the mop that was going to do it.
Death Should Not Have Taken Thee
In the heart of ESSLIB PLC, amidst the towering skyscrapers and bustling streets of Endirinn, lived two young lovers named Lila and Aric. They were not born to privilege; instead, they were born to the shadows of corporate giants, struggling to make ends meet in a world where wealth was power.
Lila was a talented artist, her vibrant paintings capturing the essence of life in ESSLIB PLC - the stark contrast between opulence and poverty, the relentless pursuit of success, and the dreams that seemed just out of reach. Aric, on the other hand, was a brilliant programmer, working long hours in a dimly lit apartment, writing code that fueled the very corporations that had a vice grip on their lives.
Their love was a beacon of hope in a world that often felt cold and heartless. They would steal moments together, watching the sun dip below the glass and steel horizon, dreaming of a future where they could escape the clutches of corporate servitude.
But fate is often cruel, and tragedy knows no boundaries. One fateful night, as they walked hand in hand through the dimly lit streets of Endirinn, a sudden explosion shattered the silence. A gas leak in an old, neglected pipeline had ignited, sending flames roaring through the narrow alley where Lila and Aric stood.
In that moment, their world turned to chaos. Aric instinctively shielded Lila from the flames, his body absorbing the searing heat. Firefighters arrived, battling the inferno, but by the time they reached the young lovers, it was too late.
Lila survived, her body scarred and her heart broken, forever haunted by the memory of that tragic night. Aric, her love, had sacrificed himself to save her. He had become a hero in a city that had little time for heroes, his brilliance extinguished in a blaze of selfless courage.
As ESSLIB PLC continued to thrive and its corporate giants grew more powerful, Lila became a recluse, her once-vibrant art now a reflection of her pain and loss. She would often stand by her window, gazing at the night sky, her tears mixing with the rain as she whispered to the heavens, "Death should not have taken thee, my love."
In the heart of ESSLIB PLC, amidst the towering skyscrapers and bustling streets of Endirinn, the tragic tale of Lila and Aric served as a haunting reminder that in a world where wealth and power reigned supreme, love was often the most tragic casualty of all.
Prviate
Mid-Graphic Warning
(The following story is a miquel between UKMC II and UKMC III(upcoming), taking place in 2021)
Prologue
Robotics Lab, Imperial Academy of Science and Technology, Edokyuuria; 0.0_2.1;00:00;12/12/1993
Everyone had already left the campus except for a professor and a genius student Simon Mendelson. In the only room where light reigns, the professor was helping Simon with his graduation project.
“Mendelson, I’ve always wanted to ask you something.”
The professor said while he was putting an optical sensor onto a skull-like metal frame.
“Yes?” Top student Simon Mendelson replied casually while he complied with his program on the laptop.
“I wondered why humans devote so much to creating something in their image.”
“Eh?” Mendelson turned over to the professor, he was confused. The professor took a step back from the working table, checking for any loose parts of the humanoid android.
“The Trinity program you’re working on, the artificial human intelligence, is nothing but an emulation for sensory data gathering software to simulate humans by limiting their decision-making to our limits as a biological computer. So that it’ll appeal to us, humans.”
The professor walked over to the confused Mendelson and pointed at his computer screen.
“The purpose of a machine is to complete its task. The purpose of a human is to reproduce. These are hard-coded lines of script inside our heads called instinct. If this feeling of so-called happiness is required to complete the task, the machine will be required to feel ‘happy. And for happiness.class to be executed, a certain condition must be reached. That condition could be being praised by another, or completing another task.”
The professor then opens the windows and takes out a cigarette.
“There isn’t a large difference between humans and your AHI, humans were born with the preset Shell of emotions such as dopamine. In your little project, you had to recreate that Shell preset in your program manually… Tell me, Mendelson, why do you and other scientists around the world try so hard to create something so human?”
Mendelson paused and stared at his computer screen for a moment, trying to think of an answer. “...I don’t have an answer, Professor Heller.”
“Don’t you think children and androids are similar?”
“Why is that?” Mendelson now looking even more confused.
“We identify a humanoid as a human that is if it acts according to its mind. Then what is a child, a humanoid who does not have any concept of social norms? When children play with dolls, they are not practicing parenting... Don’t you think playing with dolls and parenting might be similar?”
“Children are not dolls, Professor Heller.”
Nephilim: Aurea of Light Part 1
One week after Judgement Fleet Remnant left Serbatijan Elevator and joined Eden’s Rebirth.
Year 2021 A.D. September 27. Location: Aurea, Former Luthorios. Weather: Foggy.
Two Months after the War of the Fourth Coalition, with the fall of the Armed State of Jezabelstien, and the failure of the Meridian expansionism. With the collapse of the trio rivalry, the United Kingdom States remained the sole superpower of the world.
Riding this momentum of victory and success, the United Kingdom States did not hesitate to give aid to Lilium while secretly sending Nephilims to sabotage the last two oracle reactors in Lilium and Phoenix-1 during Thanedom’s invasion of Taiwan.
The retrieved oracle subjects were later sent to Locus Solus Sa Collegium with their new identity as normal students.
To return their gratitude to the Serbatijans in the Pupatorian civil war, they turned to the last remaining hostile force, the calamity that brought ruin to western Wasari… the enemy the Serbatijans called, the Unknowns.
-
The world was completely colorless, trees were not to be seen, and the sky was covered in thick fog. A lone humanoid figure arrived at the edge of an artificial cliff. From there, the roofs of the city ruins could be seen above the fog. At the bay, there were numerous shipwrecks, most were of naval origin with runes painted on them.
From the far end of the sea, the sound of explosion-like thunder could be heard behind the fog.
They sighed in disappointment before turning around and leaving.
A moment later, from the far mountains, a stream of hot gas was fired and suddenly vanished in mid-air. Moments later another explosion could be heard coming from the horizon, this time with some light piercing through the fog.
The humanoid figure puts on a torn robe made out of a flag of a familiar but unknown country. They rolled up their sleeve to check their strange watch. It was a three-dimensional mechanical clock. At the bottom of the sphere, there’s a label with ‘M-density Counter’ written on it.
Timeline Divergence from Greater Human History: #0.000
“URN Tanikaze, RAN Tsugumori, LRN Actonia, SRN Sombor, and SRN Maribor have suffered heavy damage from the previous attack!”
“I’ve told those Serbatijans to stay behind the deflector ships, didn’t I!? Get them to reposition to the rear for emergency repairs!”
Burning naval vessels on the horizon slowly reposition themselves behind a strange-looking ship with giant shield-like superstructure.
“Inaban, this is Just like the report…” Akima muttered as he looked through the binoculars from the red-lighted bridge of URN Hakuhou. Not giving the fleet time to react, the central cylinder hologram on the bridge suddenly turned red and sounded the alarm. From the Intelligence Destroyer in front of the Hakuhou, the sound of the siren spread like a virus throughout the entire Volunteer Combined Fleet of multinationals.
“Captain Akima! URN Enigma reporting, Gravitational Singularity Confirmed at point coordinate JY-45! Reaction from Imaginary Number Space Observatory! Accuracy at 62%, It’s surfacing!”
“Get those idiots out its line of fire!”
Naval ships modified with side propellers began to move in parallel. However, it wasn’t fast enough, a bright beam of heat blinded the windows of the fleet.
“Damage report!”
“URN Tonelico vaporized, other ships of the 33rd division suffered minor to medium damage.”
The deflector ship that sailed at the front of the 33rd division had its superstructure in glowing red.
“That’s going to take a while to cool-”
“Captain! Multiple SSM incoming!”
“Prepare-” Akima tried to speak but his mouth was covered by Inaban with a radio transmitter.
“This is Admiral Inaban. Prepare Halo countermeasures, everyone indoors now!”
The halo structure on the two experimental Enigma class Intelligence Destroyer starts to glow and emits an eerie noise, and then it stops. An invisible wave of death quickly expanded from the two destroyers and covered the entire fleet. Incoming missiles malfunctioned and dropped into the ocean. However, one landed right on one of the Intelligence destroyers, damaging its rudder and setting it off course. Then another missile landed right next to it, damaging its communication systems.
“All contact with Enigma II has been lost!” The radar officer reported as the crew looked at Enigma II leaving the fleet.
“The Nephilims on that ship will manage, don’t let this opportunity slip. 10 minutes until that thing can fire again. Once we cross the rayshift emitter’s inner range, it can do nothing about us landing.” Inaban explained as she pointed at Aurea.
-
In a certain landing craft of the hundreds, Nephilims Type Bs, and human troops waited nervously as the explosion could be heard outside.
“What are you doing?” Type-B12, Iroha asked the trembling Rikuran marine who held tight to a cross-like object while he mumbled.
“Leave him be.” The veteran Serbatijan marine said. “It would surely be nice if god is on our side, this time.” He sighed.
“God? This time?” The curious Nephilim android asked.
“I was there in Ras, 2019. Buying time for civilians to escape the horrors. While their name had pretty much become public knowledge, SSS had censored and classified all photos to them.”
“You saw them?”
“Yeah, when we began our counteroffensive with your predecessors ‘spider-bots’, I could take a closer look at their corpses… They were very different from Khacat Tur’s G.A.I.A. Their look is simply too unnatural to be man-made.”
“But, Sergeant Darko~ the higherup has said this ‘Unknowns’ strain in Luthorios was different from those in Ras. The higher-ups called this strain the Harvesters.” Type-B104 Ashily a member of Iroha’s Long Range Scouting Platoon interrupted the veteran. “Maybe they would be cuter!” Type-B105 Ui suggested with hopes in her eyes. Ui who was a medic and a mechanic for both human and Nephilim units had never been to the frontline.
“No way…” Type-B11 Irena sighed in the disappointment of her platoon’s members. Irena, the team’s science and analytical engine.
The four of them laughed carefreely, while the soldiers around were trying to suppress their fear.
“Do you four not have any fear of death?”
“Whether that is fortunate or unfortunate, we do not understand the concept of death. Our numbered trinity preset can easily be copied from the last neural cloud backup.” Iroha explained.
-
All four Genjitsu-Class, 71,000ton Super Reinforced Heavy Destroyer lined up and were ready for a salvo with their Twin 51cm gun mounts at the planned landing locations. All 12 of these gun mounts were now being armed with experimental Cryo-666 Antibiotic endothermic shells, developed and made for this specific operation.
“IXS Gejitsu, all green.”
“IXS Queen Eternal, all green.”
“IXS Arsviellec, all green.”
“IXS Sanctuary, all green.”
“Admiral, anytime now.” The communication officer on the Hakuhou reported to Inaban.
“Fire,” Inaban ordered as she and Akima looked out at the Aurean coast with their binoculars.
In an instant, the powerful 51cm guns fired and sent shockwaves throughout the fleet from the rear. The fired shell exploded in mid-air above the targeted location. Spilling two types of chemicals onto the ground, when they made contact, they instantly froze everything around the area, The chemical reaction happened so fast, that it eliminated or temporarily immobilized Harvester threats around the area.
“It doesn’t matter if they’re biological or mechanical, no battery can survive that temperature.”
-
The temperature of the initial blast only lasted for a few minutes before it rose to habitable levels. The carriers, heavy aviation destroyers, and amphibious assault ships opened their hanger and let out landing crafts.
“It’s finally our turn!” Ui yelled with excitement. The multiple sounds of a Gatling gun firing at the coast from the landing craft soon become background noises.
“Be quiet, or you might bite your tongue off.” Sergeant Darko yelled at her.
Then the landing craft began to decelerate before hitting the beach of Aurea. The trapdoor at the front lowered, and infantry stayed in their position as they headed out into the enemy territory.
The Nephilim type-A drones headed into the battlefield and formed a defensive formation first with their Decagrammatonian Composite shield.
“See you later, our goddesses of victory,” Darko said to Iroha before leading his team out of the craft.
Iroha took one last look at Darko before he vanished into the fog. “Are we good?” Iroha asked her platoon as she switched one of her visual sensors to infrared.
“Yeah, let’s finish this job and get our promised holiday,” Ashily replied as she put on aim-assistance goggles safely and released the radiators for her Heavy Mass Cannon.
“Ui is so excited! This is the first time Ui has been outside of the United Kingdom!” Ui exclaimed as she was about to rush toward the beach, She was stopped by Irena. “Stay in formation, stupid.”
“Let’s go, LRS Platoon,” Iroha ordered, and they sprinted out of the landing craft. “Multiple Infantry-Class and two Destroyer-Class Harvester incoming, straight ahead in 500. Ashily you’re up,” Iroha ordered. “Mo-man-tai!(No problem)” Ashily replied as her goggles showed motor movement values to adjust her aim. She stopped and stood still, and pulled the trigger. The radiators immediately turned white hot, and the tungsten shell was fired, piercing the fog and creating a tunnel. The shell pierced through the Infantry-Class Harvesters easily, however, it was deflected by the Destroyer-Class’s armor.
“What-” The platoon was just as shocked as Ashily, it was the first time the HMC could not pierce through something. “Aim for the wheels!” Iroha ordered as she tried to see the actual shape of their enemy through the thick fog.
“They don’t goddamn wheels or tracks, Iroha! They have legs! Too many legs!” Ashily replied in frustration.
“Then aim for the leg joints! Think of it as the simulation with Sentinel-Class Aragami! Ui, Irena, and I will cover you so hurry up!”
Ashily pulled the trigger again this time firing at the legs of the Destroyer-Class Harvesters. The extent of the damage is unknown due to the fog, however, the enemy seemed to have stopped their movement.
The four carefully moved toward the ‘wreckages’ of the Harvesters. Their appearance was slowly revealed in the dense fog.
“Is this what they call the emotion of disgust?” Ashily asked.
“It’s called the feeling of disgust,” Iroha replied.
“Ui thought they would be cuter…” Ui commented.
“...this material… is not metal…” Irena said after she poked the Infantry-Class Harvester’s ‘wreckage’ with her bayonet. “This… is similar to human skin.”
The Infantry-Class Harvester was a slug-shaped creature slightly bigger than a human, It had a big mouth and multiple eye-like sensory organs at the front, and it was constructed in a material similar to human skin.
While the Destroyer-Class Harvester had a metallic shell of unknown material attached to its frontal body. The Destroyer-Class was at least thrice as big as the Infantry-Class, it had six legs, and the leg's bone structure bear resembled horses. Its muscles were made of an unknown soft material.
Then the radio transmission channel came through. The sound of gunfire, screams of total despair, and fear of this absurd mission were then realized. The landing parting on the far western side of the bay seemed to be overwhelmed, being torn apart, and were desparated in needing reinforcement.
“Let’s go,” Iroha ordered coldly. “There’s nothing we can do for them. The operation must continue.” The platoon stayed silent and followed Iroha’s lead into the old ruins of Aurea.
-
Above the dense cloud of Luthorios in low orbit. The Rhongomyniad Mirror Array of the Rias International Space elevator aligned themselves to create a perfect reflective line of fire from the Celestial-1 Module. “This is an announcement from the RISE Terminal, Luna Line will be delayed. For passengers who are heading to Tsukuyomi-1, we apologize for the inconvenience.”
The message was broadcast throughout the station. Then a beam was fired from the RISE Terminal, hitting all the mirror arrays and shot directly above Aurea. The energy of the last was dispersed when it made contact with the strange disruption fog above Luthorios.
“Sigh, It’s no use after all…” Teresa Row, the Chief of Celestial Affairs murmured in disappointment. “Resume the Luna Line’s operation. It was a waste of time.” She ordered from the central control of the Terminal.
-
“Irena! At your 6!” Iroha shouted just as she realized an Infantry-Class Harvester was closing in.
“I got this!” Ui said as she took her SSS standard-issued Decagrammatonian blade and sliced the head of the enemy off.
“Stay focused! Think about the technical and science later, Irena!” Iroha yelled at Irena.
The platoon slowly retreated into a building as they kept firing at the swarm of Harvesters.
“There’s no end to them! Ashily complained.
“That’s probably what the Serps thought of us Aragamis during the Serp-UKS war.” Ui joked.
Irena stopped firing and looked around the interior of the factory-like building, it was a steel factory.
“What’s wrong? Irena?” Iroha asked while she kept firing at the Harvesterunits approaching the entrance.
*Ashily, fire your HMC at that crucible above the entrance.”
“The what? Irena?” Ashily replied in confusion, She looked up and immediately understood Irena’s plan. Quickly aimed and fired at the joint of the giant crucible, it started to lose balance.
“Get back, that’s gonna fall!” Iroha called as she dragged Ui by the shoulder to retreat further into the building. The giant crucible finally loses its balance and falls to the ground, crushing some Harvesters and blocking off the front entrance to the factory.
“Are we safe?” Ui asked. But before anyone could answer, the sound of Harvesters ramming themselves into the blockade could be heard.
“Ui guess not,” Ui answered herself.
“Backdoor, we must go now.” Iroha leads the platoon away from the main entrance and further into the industrial complex.
Turning on their flashlights, the four arrived into a long hallway with all different type of pipes and vent on the sides and ceiling. Despite being abandoned for so long, there weren’t any signs of plant life, not even moss. They continue their walk into the dark hallway carefully on high alert. “Not even spiders or mosquitoes. The ecosystem is just dead within this region.” Irena mummered.
Iroha stopped the team as soon as she noticed sandbags at the end of the hallway. It was a barricade created by survivors.
“Survivors!” Ui said excitedly, but she was interrupted by Irena with an infrared view on. “There’s no heat source in that room, it’s safe to go.”
The four got over the barricade and opened the door.
“Ugh.” Ashily looked away.
The room was full of burnt corpses of human survivors. On the right side of the room, the wall was breached and opened. There were signs of a defensive battle between survivors and the Harvesters from the damage to the furniture. There were explosive burn marks at the center of the room.
Iroha did not say a thing, she immediately walked over to the breached wall, taking a look at the situation outside. Ashily remained silent and followed Iroha.
Ui stared at the scene blankly. “Harvesters can’t use explosives… right?” She asked the Platoon. They did not answer. A medical Type-B Nephilim android, they have Medical Tasks running at higher priority than normal inside the Instinct Module of the Personality Trinity, resulting in their abnormal fabricated desire to save others. However, when situations such as these human rejects the chance of being saved. The failure to execute a task due to external factors would send a spike of chaotic data into the initially well-organized emotion matrix, resulting in both the artificial, external expression of sadness and trauma. This would be the auto requirement to redistribute attributes based on the 7 sins and virtues in the Moral Module of the Personality Trinity, resulting in a change in future rational and irritation decision-making. In other words, AHI character development.
“Harvester cannot use explosives…” Ui answered her question quietly, held tight to her assault rifle, and followed the rest of the team.
Outside of the factory, it was the coast again. Other than the sound of the waves, it was awfully quiet. No signs of any friendly or hostile. “It’s the beach again,” Ashily said as soon as she noticed she was stepping on the sand. Iroha takes out the map to confirm their location before putting x marks on the map like bingo.
“Our reconnaissance mission's destination should be up ahead.” She told everyone as she pointed at the eastern end of the beach of Aurean Bay.
“Eh?”
In the direction she was pointing, there was a massive fleet of shipwrecks. Due to the fog, they couldn’t tell the classification or origin of the wrecks. But something about the ship’s outline looked somewhat familiar.
“Could it have been the first Luthorios scouting division?” Ashily asked.
“That wouldn’t be possible, Long Bridge-Class Deflector Destroyers and Point-Mass Singularity Detector weren’t developed yet. They would’ve been vaporized before reaching here.” Irena immediately shut down Ashily’s theory.
“Anyhow, now that there’s that anomaly in front of us. We have no choice but to confirm it ourselves.” Iroha signals the group to approach the wrecks on high alert.
Those were wreckages some kind of destroyers and arsenal ships. What’s most unusual is that they were all covered in runes of intersecting squares and circles.
“They look like the Pupatorian Runes we have in the URN,” Ui commented as they continued their walk through the wreckage site on the beach.
“They are indeed awfully similar… but I don’t have data on this kind of symbol in my database. These are not Catherdrasilicom runes.” Irena said as she took a closer look at the rune patterns.
“They kind of look like the Ashigara-Class but bigger.” Ashily pointed at the superstructure of one of the ships.
“I don’t have any data on these vessel numbers, they don’t belong to us,” Iroha said, but she was starting to doubt the reliability of the data provided to her.
Ui suddenly stopped and pointed at the wreckage at the further end.
“Hey… doesn’t that ship look like… it has a halo?” Ui asked confused and slightly frightened. The group immediately looked at the direction she was pointing.
“Yeah…” Ashily agreed nervously.
“No one else on the planet would be a halo on their war machines other than…” Iroha also agreed, smiling nervously.
“That’s no doubt an Enigma-Class Intelligence Destroyer,” Irena said, even though she didn’t have a clear explanation of how is there a third one when only two had been constructed.
“Hey… do you think Edokyuuria is lying to us?” Ui starting to suspect the UKS government.
“We won’t know for sure until we get closer,” Irena replied, immediately walking toward the suspicious shipwreck, The others followed her lead.
The ship had the Prafectean number MCIV at the front. Judging from the shape of the vessel, it was no doubt an Enigma-Class Destroyer. Like other wrecks, it was also covered in unidentified runes. “Praefectus? But the runes certainly are not of Praefectean of origin.” Ashily said as she approached the hole in the hull. She put her hand onto the damaged hull and noticed a rough pattern of layering. Without paying much attention to the strangely manufactured hull, Ashily signaled the others they could enter the ship from the hole in the hull. Ui and Iroha followed her inside, but Irena stayed behind and took a closer look at the hull.
“This is… 3D printed alloy…” She muttered.
“Irena?” Iroha called from the inside.
“Yeah, I’m coming,” Irena replied and followed the others, not thinking much.
There were signs of combat but no signs of any corpses. Taking the lead, Iroha carefully led the team stairways based on her knowledge of the Enigma-Class’s interiors. “Even the location of the stairways is the same as ours. This ship isn’t a replica, it has to be one of Yotsubishi Heavy Industry origin.” Irena theorized as she looked for company logos on the pipes and electric boxes around the dark hallway. “A secret fleet constructed by Yotsubishi Heavy Industries that no one knew about, or the Edokyuurian Government had been hiding it,” Iroha added to Irena’s theory as she began to climb the stairs. “It’s too clean for an abandoned ship,” she commented after looking up the stairway that led to the bridge.
“It’s no good. It won’t open.” Ui said tiredly after trying to open the door to the bridge. Irena shines her flashlight at the door, It has an unfamiliar lock design. “The general structure of the ship is a replica but not the tiny electronics huh…” Irena said after she inspected the lock mechanism. “We can’t use the HMC here, it might attract the enemy.” Iroha reminded Ashily who got excited about destroying the door. “Let’s try with our swords,” Ui suggested, and Iroha agreed to the idea. Carefully taking out the composite blade, Iroha tried to cut the metallic rod that locked the door in place. The Decagrammatonian Composite blade managed to pierced through the metallic rod, however, it required a lot of force. “This material has to be some sort of nanotech super composite, not even concrete is this hard to slice with our blades.”
After a while, they managed to break the lock, and Iroha chipped away some of the super composites for Irena to take back for research. With permission from Iroha, Ui then kicked down the door with full force.
The bridge was almost identical to URN Enigma, except for unknown text labels and interface designs. But the placement, floor planning, cables, and everything else were almost the same. As the other platoon members investigated the controls of the ship, Iroha turned to examine the rear wall. “Just as I thought.”
The metal plate that engraved the name of the ship was there at the back of the bridge, however, it fell to the ground. Iroha walked over and carefully lifted the plate off the ground. Irena who noticed Iroha’s discovery, quickly walked over to investigate. “Now that’s just ridiculous”
Unified Pupatorian Navy
Intelligence Destroyer Stultifera Navis of the Enigma-Class
CIV Ship of Her Class
MMXIX C.E.
“The ship of fools.” A mysterious voice whispered. Iroha and Irena looked at each other to confirm whether they’d heard the voice. Before they could speak, Iroha’s standard-issued Miraculum Density Counter started to go off. “I think it’s broken,” Iroha said to calm her startled team. Just as she was about to take it out to investigate, the counter of all other three team members was also going off. All four of them looked at each other, not knowing how to react or what to do. Iroha then realized the beeping sound of her counter was going faster and faster than others. Without explanation, Iroha kicked Irena to the wall.
In an instant, the ceiling of the bridge was breached open with an explosive impact. Iroha barely dodged whatever was landed there.
The rest of the platoon had their weapons aimed at the unknown target as the slowly cleared itself.
“Ah~uh, I missed.” A distorted but similar voice came from the unknown target. The target slowly stood up. Slicing through the dust with a crystal spear that forms out of nowhere, and disappears right after. It shows itself as a humanoid. The Miraculum density counters quieted down after the disappearance of the mysterious crystal spear.
Iroha quickly stood up and aimed her c96 mk4 her the humanoid target. The unknown humanoid raised its head and turned its attention to Iroha. It had the same face as Iroha,
“A mimesis!?” Irena asked, staying calm.
“Who knows, but Miraculum density counters had some crazy numbers just now. It seemed like some sort of Miraculum weaponry.” Ashily replied nervously.
“Then it’s just like you’ve theorized, Irena. This mimesis lady here got to have something related to Edokyuuira. We’re the world away from the only Miraculum contamination in the world.” Ui said with a nervous smile.
“What are you!?” Iroha asked the Mimesis as she slowly approached with her gun aiming at it. “
Suddenly a high-frequency music-like communication emitted from the Mimesis.
xE re durra mEezazc z jTDUie an dDUurra/.
Kyu -> ExkY[afixi] -> ExkY[rai] -> {durra};
Rai => {
Kyu -> ExkY[fire] -> ExkY[nul] -> {durra};
Kyu -> ExkY[meza] -> {durra};
Kyu - > ExkY[fire] -> {Lir};
}
Kyu -> ExkY[rai] -> {durra};
“Impossible! That’s- Iroha get back!” Irena yelled as she started firing at the Mimesis. A crystal-like assault rifle that resembled the URA’s Stg44Mk3 appears in the Mimesis’s hand. Iroha quickly rolled behind one of the control units to take cover. The bullets’ path of the projection was distorted as soon as they reached within a close spherical radius of the Mimesis.
“What-”
Then the Mimesis coldly returned fire, hitting Irena on the shoulder and causing her to fall to the ground. “I’m good! Don’t worry about it!” Irena reported.
“If they could warp energy beams out of nowhere in the middle of the ocean like earlier, of course, they are capable of this kind of distortion witchcraft.” Ashily said as she prepared the HMC.
“Then how about close-quarter combat?” Ui asked without expecting an answer, leaping toward the Mimesis with her bayonet. The blade distorted before it even reached the enemy. “Then how about this!?” Ui murmured as she fired her rifle at point-blank distance. The bullet’s projection path was still distorted but it was too close to the Mimesis, it pierced through its body. The Mimesis grabbed onto Ui’s neck and fired its crystal rifle at her. Damages that the crystal bullets passed through began to crystalize, including the coolant liquid that spilled out from Ui body.
“Ui!” Horrified at the scene, Iroha drew her Decagrammatonian Composite sword and rushed toward the Mimesis. The Mimesis immediately noticed the sword, was surprised, dropped Ui to the ground, and dodged the attack. Iroha took a quick look at the Ui who remained unconscious. Her wounds had a similar effect to the mysterious Rapture Pandemic in the UKS. Iroha then turned her attention to the Mimesis once again. “Why do you look like me? Answer me!” The Mimesis remained silent, it materialized a black crystal blade and leaped toward Iroha with an attack.
The two engaged in close-quarter combat, Ashily who had the HMC ready could not aim with Iroha being so close to the Mimesis. “The legs, Ashily. If the Mimesis has a distortion field all around, it cannot stand at all. The field does not cover the legs.” Irena told Ashily where to fire, and Ashily nodded.
“Iroha! Distance yourself!” Ashily warned the platoon leader. Iroha attacked with a heavy strike before retreating backward, allowing her to distance herself from the Mimesis. Ashily immediately pulled the trigger, and the powerful shell instantly removed the Mimesis’s left leg, causing it to lose its balance. However, a crystal replacement left leg quickly materialized. “Monster.” Iroha called. The Mimesis heard Iroha, and turned its attention to Iroha again, staring emotionlessly. Then it leaped to the roof, retreating from the ship.
Upon hearing the other platoon members calling for her. Ui opened her eyes. “What happened?”
Ui asked as she tried to suppress the warning notifications in her head. She looked down, there was a giant hole in her right chest. “Ahhhh that’s not good, Ui’s right ventilation unit is destroyed.” Ui said sarcastically.
“I’ve removed the crystalized parts and sealed off the coolant vessels. But don’t move around too much.” Irena explained as she put away the mechanic kit. Taking a good look around, the monitor was now on. “Iroha and Ashily managed to get the backup generator working in the reactor room.” Irena explained, helping Ui get up from the floor.
Iroha was checking the ship’s log but they were written in an unknown language. While Ashily was trying to use the radio on the ship, making static noises. Then something came through “Gloria Afixia” the old salute. “Did some idiot forget we changed the salute a year ago?” Ashily jokingly asked. “Who knows?” Iroha replied, changing the broadcast channel until it reached the encrypted SSS frequency. The KivotOS communication encryption was broadcasting outside of human hearing range. “I hate this kind of decryption work-” Ashily complained but Iroha told her to shut up as she tried to decrypt the message. After double-checking the code, Iroha read out the message. “The combined fleet had secured the old Aurean capitol as the base of operation…”
“Let’s go there and get Ui repaired, we’ve already reached the eastmost point of Aurea.” Iroha Ashily suggested, and Iroha agreed. “Ui, can you walk?” Iroha turned over and asked.
“Ui can walk, no problem. But Ui can’t seem to stop yawning though.” Ui replied with a yawn, exhausting heat.
“It can’t be helped, you lost half of your ventilation system.” Irena replied, getting ready to leave. “Well, then it’s decided.” Iroha said with a gentle smile, but deep down she was still bothered by the Mimesis who looked just like her.
Departing from the Stultifera Navis wreckage, the platoon headed for central Aurea, where the Combined Fleet’s base of operation is.
Unknown to them, they were being watched silently by the Mimesis from afar.
-
It was getting dark when they arrived.
The former capitol building of Luthorios stood before the four, the flag of Luthorios had finally returned home at the pole above the giant parliament. Heavy artillery was now being transported into the capitol square, and concrete wall fortifications had been placed quickly. Past the impressive fortifications, temporary barracks were being constructed as medical officers were busy treating the enormous amount of injured soldiers, mechanics repairing Nephilims, and doing data backups.
-
“That took you long enough to report on the situation, Miss Inaban. I thought we were going to need to find you a replacement in the cabinet.” UKMC State Secretary Kristina Gyasivel complained through the video call. “Don’t be like that, Krista. They had to reattach an emergency submarine cable to the Serbatijan elevator to get internet due to enemies’ jamming after all…” UKMC Grand Chancellor Fuyuki Mashiro said trying to calm Gyasivel down. “Couldn’t you just send someone else other than your Chief of Naval Affairs? Or is this one of the navy’s energetic competitions with the URAF?” Grand Duchess Yoshiko of Rikura questioned the UKS’s strange decision. Inaban managed to keep a straight face despite being furious. “Well, Miss Inaban is the most experienced naval officer alive, she survived both extraterrestrial wars, and led a rebellion with the marines toward the fascist Edokyuuria government… Yeah, there isn’t any other person qualified for this operation other than her. Her plot armor is truly something.” UKS Chief of Aerial Defence, Hirosei Hana, Inaban’s eternal rival explained with a smug. “Ah- It’s you who convinced Mashiro to send me here! Hirosei! Are you trying to get me killed again!?” Inaban snapped the moment she saw Hirosei pop up on the call while sunbathing on a military runway.
Alexander Rothschild, Luthorios’ PM in exile who was not used Pupatorian shenanigans remained awkwardly silent with his translator beside him.
“Ahem. Anyway. The Combined Force's casualties are estimated to be over 7,200 at this very moment. We managed to limit the number of casualties thanks to Rikura’s strange-looking Deflector Ships, and our experimental Enigma-Class Destroyer. However, as we expected, the aircraft is useless here, the fog is capable of jamming out communication at a certain altitude. Big objects flying around will also get them shot down by the beam weapon.” The voice call was surprised by the unexpected amount of deaths, Inaban paused and took a deep breath. “As theorized by intel from the Judgement Fleet’s patrol unit. The energy weapon is in fact, a replica of Serbatijan Empire’s Megablaster that was used in the Vril War in 2018.”
“I remember the Megablaster is an energy weapon that cannot fire beyond the horizon due to the curvation of the planet?” Alexander asked in English. “That is correct, Mr Rothschild.” Inaban continued her explanation by sharing data from the Enigma-Class Intelligence Destroyer’s Point-Mass Singularity Detector.
“Mr. Rothschild. What you’re looking at is the gravitation anomaly of a miniature wormhole.” Inaban explained. Alexander thought she was joking at first, but seeing how everyone else kept a straight face he finally gave in to reality. “Go on, Miss Inaban.”
“From an unconfirmed source of Jezabeltien’s Aleph One program, they called the flashlight-like device a Rayshift Emitter. It is capable of sending objects to the ocean of imaginary number space and resurfaces elsewhere in the world. If such a machine does exist, then warping an energy beam is possible. However, the energy required to activate such a theoretical device is astronomical. From all the existing technology we are aware of, only an Oracle Core Reactor might be able to power it.” Inaban explained the theory to the meeting.
“So, this has to do with Jezabelstien? Miss Inaban?”
“Unlikely, we have no evidence of Jezavelstien’s presence in Luthorios… however we might have something more unbelievable to deal with..”
“What do you mean by that, Miss Inaban?” Gyasviel asked.
“The Harvester’s true form is unlike anything we- no I’ve ever encountered.” Inaban carefully hints and refers to the SSS database. “How so? Do continue.” Gyasivel got curious. Inaban then showed them pictures of immobilized Harvesters.
“As you can see, these creatures bear similarities to terrestrial wildlife. As if they’re made of multiple types of animals through some sort of transmutation.” Inaban explained, that everyone in the voice call except for the cold state secretary, was disgusted by the pictures. “Additional note, no corpses of Luthorios civilian, plantlife nor animals had been found.”
“What do you mean there’s no plantlife, Inaban?” Mashiro asked.
“Before we arrive, there’s barely any organic material at all. No even insects.”
“Thank you, Miss Inaban,” Gyasviel said to conclude the report. After another few minutes of talking, everyone left the voice call except for Inaban and Duchess Yoshiko.
“Thank you for manufacturing the 4 Gejitsu-Class in time. Duchess Yoshiko.”
“You should thank your princess. It was Eudokia who convinced me to approve the council’s decision to materialize those experimental weapons for you. You have a lot to explain to your government where that naval budget had gone.”
“Right.”
-
After supervising the modification and fortification of the capitol’s interior, Akima tiredly headed for the main entrance to exit and get dinner at the newly constructed emergency barracks. With a checklist and reports in his hand, he pushed open the old wooden door to the outside. The outside was as busy as ever, the medical officers never stopped treating the wounded as the fighting never stopped. Artillery fire and machine guns could be heard far away. In the middle of the capitol square, a bonfire was lit. Soldiers were resting around it, some were praying at it, while some were mourning their lost comrades at it. The Nephilims were the only ones fooling around in this situation. Those who were repaired or switched to backup bodies were already up either playing games or lazying around fearlessly. To the nervous soldiers, it was a sort of morale boost. Akima sighed at the scene but smiled.
“Wouldn’t lighting up a bonfire attract the enemies’ attention, Captain?” Iroha who had been sitting at the stairs in front of the capitol this whole time asked Akima.
“For some reason, across all cultures, when humans see the fire at the end of the day it calms us down, Iroha. Especially in situations like these,” Akima explained as he sat beside Iroha.
“Even with that being said, we have yet to encounter Harvester capable of any long-range attacks,” Akima said as he looked through the report in his hand. Iroha stared blankly at her platoon members playing board games. Ui, who had just been repaired seemed to be in the lead due to the excited expression on her. Ashily who seemed to be losing with her nervousness stared at her cards. Finally, Irena tried to calm Ui down and not to move around too much as she hadn’t gotten used to her new replacement parts.
“Captain Koutetsujou, I have a theory,” Iroha said to Akima without moving her focus from the platoon. “Go on,” Akima replied as he lit his cigarette.
“The casualty of this war is much higher, the 3,000 that went into MIA are possibly dead.”
“What makes you think that, Iroha?”
“Our enemies might be some sort of mining machines. You saw the corpses of our enemies, didn’t you?” Iroha asked and Akima flipped the pages to the photos again.
“Yeah, it’s disgusting.”
“Carbon-based lifeform might’ve been mined, collected, and recycled. That would explain things such as why there are no plants, insects, or any corpses of humans who were left behind.”
“You mean, Harvesters eat people?”
“Us as well. We found remains of Nephilims’ Silicon Computing Storage Unit and other parts. Additionally, if you look at Infantry-Class Harvesters, they are made of human tissue-like material. There’s a reasonable possibility to suggest they were recycled. As far as we could tell, Harvester are only capable of close-range combat with their claws and teeth. This certainly would support the theory of them being some sort of mining machine, don’t you think?” Iroha looked at Akima. “You mean the Harvesters might have some sort of drones?” Akima responded to her theory with a question.
“Yeah… Drones…” Iroha agreed and looked saddened by his answer. She returned her attention to the bonfire, Akima wondered if he said something wrong.
“I wonder if I’m the same as them,” Iroha muttered. “If Nephilim Type-Bs’ Trinity system of Insintct, Moral, and Data modules are programmed to emulate a character of human irrationality, which as you can see in front of you, being lazy.” Iroha made her point by showing Akima her platoon members’ carefree behavior across the street. “And if at the moment, I who isn’t feeling lazy, aren’t I the same as them? The Harvesters?”
Akima was surprised by Iroha’s existential crisis, he paused and thought about what to say, but someone tapped on his shoulder.
“Akima, our ship(Hakuhou)’s chief engineer is calling for you,” Inaban told him.
“Huh? This hour? I was just about to get food.” Akim replied, he gave Inaban the documents and left for the harbor. Now it was just Inaban and Iroha.
“Well, about your report.” Inaban sat next to Iroha and began to speak.
“What are you hiding?” Iroha asked immediately.
“Well, what do you want to know?” Inaban replied as she put away the documents Akima had given her earlier.
“Harvesters, the name we gave them. It can’t be a coincidence. What were those shipwrecks? And why was my report about the Mimesis Harvester classified-” Iroha was interrupted by Inaban before she could finish asking.
“I don’t want to say this, but those are dangerous questions you’re asking. Question that would fail this operation.” Inaban warned her. To Iroha, Admiral Inaban cannot be trusted. But then, Inaban silently turned on her phone and showed her a picture of a children’s drawing. It showed creatures that had a striking resemblance to the Harvesters. Then she swiped to show another picture of an old PGRI research paper on synthetic humans. She swiped again to show rejected Aragami designs that never made it through prototype stages. Horrified by the implications, Iroha looked at Inaban, waiting for an answer.
“There’s a possibility that Harvesters-”
Before Inaban could finish, Ui dropped the dice and suddenly collapsed in the distance, Ashily and Irena were surprised as well. Iroha apologized to Inaban before heading toward the platoon to check out the situation.
-
Some say it's a digital location, some say it's under paradise, and some say it doesn't exist at all. Here they are, under the non-existent 11th tower of Da'at of the Student Council Sanctum. In this anomalous imaginary location, an important meeting was being held under the symbol of the forbidden fruit. Each member was standing on a cliff facing the central holographic sphere.
"From the surface heat sensors that Admiral Inaban had been sending out, we were able to locate the presumed Hive of the Unknowns, specifically the Harvester Strain of Aurea." Teresa Row reported to the director's council under her mask to conceal her identity.
“The Anterians had already arrived, but nothing much had changed in the Ras front. To create an opening for the Serbatijan front in Ras, we must diverge the enemy’s attention from Aurea. We must destroy the Megablaster Replica in Aurea, it is an obstacle in logistics.” A masked council member said as he looked at the monitor.
“Well, Inaban had the same idea as you, No.13” Teresa replied, then turned to the other side of the room. “Here are her proposals for the operation to take down the hive. Have a look, will you, No .1?” Teresa sent the file to the 1st Branch director with the fox mask. The 1st Branch Director let out a sigh before starting to read through the file. Next to Teresa, directly opposed to the 1st Branch Director, Eudokia with her mask on, carefully inspects the pictures and reports of the situation in Aurea. She felt something was missing from the reports.
The 1st Branch Director noticed Eudokia’s suspicion on the reports and immediately interrupted the silence. “Well, I approve of the plan, How about the others?” She raised her hand in a vote, and the others also followed in agreement. Eudokia was the last to cast her vote, the 1st Branch Director felt a glare from her.
After the long meeting, individual council members disappeared as the light that was shining on their spot was shut off one by one until there was only the princess and the fox mask left.
“What is the meaning of this, Kaguya?” Eudokia took off her mask and asked furiously as she showed her the Miraculum Density Detector Array’s mapping data. It showed two straight lines gradually having different wavelengths before one of them matched the other in the opposite and resulted in destructive interference.
“This lasted longer than 5 seconds, Kaguya. Why wasn’t this on the report?” Eudokia demanded an answer, but the 1st Branch Director simply turned away. Kaguya did not reply and turned off the lights.
The next moment, Eudokia found herself in the dark maze hall of mirrors in the basement of the Student Council Sanctum. The only light source was the lantern that Eudokia carried. Out of frustration, she threw the files onto the floor. Pina watched silently from the corner of the hall.
Nephilim: Aurea of Light Part 2
Despite the fog that still covers Aurea, it’s brighter when it’s in the morning.
The ground trembles as Type-16R Tank Destroyers and armored transports start leaving the capitol area and heading toward the northern desert. The LRS platoon was given a light transport vehicle and followed the 13th armored company.
“So, what’s going on with Ui?” Ashily asked Irena and Iroha from the driver’s seat. “They aren’t sure, but there seems to be crystalization in the silicon computing storage. This is the first case of rapture diseases affecting non-biologicals.” Irena explained as she checked on the terrain map.”Couldn’t she just backup to another spare body?” Ashily asked.
“Yeah, not in this situation. There might be corrupted data.” Iroha replied from the back, preparing the eight Nephilim Type-As drones they brought with them. “No matter how many times you look at them, these killing dolls always give me the creeps,” Iroha muttered as she finished the final checks.
The 3rd tank division followed the other division and passed through the absolute defense line. Countless corpses of Harvesters could be seen in direction, inside or outside craters. This was the place that was being shelled for the entire night.
“Why are we humanoid anyway?” Iroha questioned while looking at the Harvester corpse and the scenery outside, Irena noticed her odd behavior but didn’t say anything.
-
While the other companies were put on the frontline to draw the Harvester’s attention, the 13th and 14th Armored companies took the long route to attack from the flank of the presumed enemy base. Ashes and smoke filled the sky, and the sound of gunfire and explosions became so frequent that they became background noises.
“Iroha, come look at this,” Irena called as she showed Iroha a map from the front seat. The terrain had no mountains, yet there was one in front of them. “The company captain is asking us whether we can get around it,” Ashily added to the conversation as she drove. Iroha opened the hatch on the ceiling and looked at the horizon. It wasn’t just a mountain but an entire mountain range.
“Irena, are we sure we’re not off course?” Iroha asked.
“Judging from the train station we saw earlier, we are on course.”
“Hmmm… lend me your binoculars, Irena.”
“Here you go.” Irena gave Iroha her binocularlar. From the left and right furthest points, she measured the height and depth of the mountains. Their positions were convex, and their height was roughly the same. Iroha turned on the radio and contacted the company captain. “Platinium-1 to Spearhead-1. There’s a possibility the mountain ahead might be a crater-like structure.”
“Spearhead-1 to Platinium-1. That’s strange, we’ve got no report of meteorites landing Luthorios from the Ministry of Celestial Affairs for the past twenty years. Search for possible routes to get over the other side.” The captain gave them new orders. Iroha climbed down and opened a case for a scouting drone.
“You’re going to use that? Don’t you remember why we don’t have air support?” Ashily reminded Iroha after seeing her preparing a drone from the reflection of the back mirror.
“Yeah. Electronics malfunction at a certain altitude similar to the Oracle Core meltdown. It should be fine if I just fly it close to the ground.” Iroha replied as she let out a large antenna out of the vehicle. Flipped the power switch on the drone, and let it fly out.
“Ah- she really sent it out,” Ashily said in a way she was worried about the drone like a pet. From the controller on Iroha’s hand, she skillfully flew the drone as close to the ground as possible as it headed for the mountain up ahead.
“Spearhead-1 to Platinium-1. Any visual data?” A few minutes after the drone left, the captain asked for intel. Iroha carefully adjusts the lens on the drone to get a better focus. Some sort of run-walled showed up on the screen. “Runes?” Iroha zoomed out and revealed the mountains were neither a natural mountain terrain nor a crater, the entire thing was artificial. It has train-like rails and entrances as holes similar to an ant colony. On the surface, it was covered in runes.
“Platinium-1 to Spearhead-1. That’s no mountain, that entire thing is artificial!”
“What!?”
-
The two companies stopped as they carefully inspected the many entrances of the megastructure to plan their next move. “There are a few entrances that can fit our vehicles, but indoor combat would put us at a disadvantage since the enemy has a greater number.” The 14th’s captain said while looking through the binoculars.
“And there’s no telling which entrance is the one that will lead us to the center.” The 13th captain replied while looking at the payload with the A2 Mine.
“I honestly don’t think anyone had tried to install a WMD deep within enemy territory by land.”
“Well, looks like we’re going for a world record.”
While the two captains discussed the situation, Ashily walked around to take pictures with her phone with the Type-Bs of other platoons. Iroha and Irena walked around to investigate the unnatural surroundings that were void of life.
“Iroha. Is something bothering you?” Irena asked as she took samples of the grey dirt on the ground. Iroha dismissed her concern, saying she was fine.
“You’re not fine. Ever since we encountered the Mimesis, you’ve been acting odd.” Irena continued asking her. Iroha remained silent and looked away. Irena was getting frustrated with her, she was about to walk over and grab her shoulder. Suddenly, the Miraculum Density Counter started reacting again. “Is it here?” Irena asked as she got ready for combat. Iroha took out the device and noticed it was giving a faint signal. “It’s a very weak one.” She replied. As she was turning around to check on her surroundings, she realized the counter’s numbers were different. It was coming from a single direction, the artificial mountain. “But it’s at a stable and constant frequency.”
-
After reporting the findings to the 13th and 14th armored company’s captains, they decided to follow the counter’s direction. Which they believe had the highest chance of reaching the center of the hive. However…
“Your kind and the Type-As will be heading in first to clear a path for us.” The 14th’s captain ordered with the 13th’s reluctant agreement. They were planning to stay in the rear and let the Nephilims fight at the front. Ashily was slightly frustrated due to having more work assigned to her.
“Why the long face? You won’t have to worry about dying anyway. You’ll just wake up back in your dormitory.” The 14th’s captain said after seeing Ashily’s annoyed expression. “Ha? So we’re as expandable as Type-As now?” Ashily stood up to the captain and complained after remembering Ui’s situation.
“What right do you have to complain? Unlike us, you would just wake up in the base dormitory, or back in Edokyuuria. Peaceful city under the blue skies, we don’t have that luxury.”
“That’s why you have to thank us for helping you take back your homeland, Mr. Forigner.”
“Why did they have to make these drones talk so much.” The furious captain of the 14th company said as he grabbed Ashily by the collar. In response, Ashily’s eyes locked onto the captain’s face and a small red holographic halo appeared above her head.
Just in time, Iroha managed to separate the two and prevented anything fighting from starting.
“If you have the energy to fight, then save it for later. You’ll need it, both of you. There might be millions of Harvesters in there.” Iroha as she pushes both the captain and Ashily away from each other.
-
“What’s with the 14th’s captain? What was his name again? Antonio Winston? I’ll be sure to cancel him on Tweeter once we get back.” Ashily continued to complain beside Iroha and Irena as they led the eight Type-As from their platoon deeper into the hive. Other Nephilim platoons were advancing from other entrances, all of them were using the Miraculum Density Counter as a guide to reach the center. The interior of the cave-like entrance resembles a subway, with tracks and cables. “Why didn’t our captain say anything?” Ashily asked Iroha about the 13th captain's silence during the whole argument.
“He probably doesn’t want to die as well.” Irena replied while she inspected the ceiling of the tunnel. “If I remember, our captain had family waiting for him to go back.” Iroha commented, that she also reminded them they were in enemy territory, and they all should be on high alert.
“Come to think of it, we haven’t encountered any Harvesters after we’ve entered.” Ashily reminded the others.
“She’s right. There wasn’t a single gunshot.” Irena agreed and stopped. She asked Iroha to check the Counter, confirming they were heading in the right direction. “It is still leading us deeper.”
“We don’t have any other choices other than advancing deeper into the abyss,” Iroha said as she took a step forward, and stomped onto a broken train track. The sound of impact echoed through the subway-like tunnels, the echoes were further and further away until they could no longer hear it. “Irena, how far does this tunnel go?” Iroha asked as she ordered the Type-As to ready their weapons.
“About 1km before an intersection.” She replied after calculating the returns from the echoes. Just as she reported, the steel bars of the rails began to vibrate. The three looked at each other in confusion. “It’s a train.” Iroha murmured.
“You got to be kidding me-” Ashily said be she was interrupted by the sudden appearance of light from the abyss.
“Irena, can we outrun that?”
“No way, Iroha.”
“Brilliant.”
Iroha immediately ordered the Type-As to stand on the side of the tunnel and open fire at the wheels of the incoming train-like entity.
“Ashily, use the HMC to destroy the tracks or to derail it- actually do both of them!” Iroha ordered as she was about to take out mines to destroy the rails. That’s when she realized the train tracks were already in horrible condition, there was no way a train would be capable of running on it. Ashily opened fire at the incoming light, each time she fired the eardrum-destroying echoes would spread throughout the artificial tunnels. From the repeated firing of the HMC, Irena started to map out the tunnels in her head. However, the more progress she made on the map, the more nervous and worried she became as if she learned something she wasn’t supposed to know.
The HMC shells landed on the incoming light, an animal-like painful screeching could be heard echoing.
“That thing is on legs, not wheels. It’s an unknown type of Harvester.” Iroha declared as she tried to relay the message to the 13th and 14th captains. All forms of communication were blocked by the tunnel’s thick concrete walls covered in runes. She then ordered the type-As to use handheld missile launchers to stop the unknown Harvester. “Remember to check if there’s no one behind you!” Iroha shouted at the Type-As, as they unfiromly finished safety checking.
“On the mark of 3, 2, 1, Fire!”
Anti-tank missiles were fired from the eight Type-As, and moments later the far end of the tunnel was filled with explosions and fire. The firey light provided the platoon a glimpse of what they were facing, a train-like monster with the legs of horses. As collapse and die in the fire, Infantry-Class and Tank-Class Harvesters attempt to escape to survive, but the fuel explosion from the stomach of the transporter monster ignites an additional explosion that kills them all.
“Gloria Wlefvelia.” The Type-As said uniformly after witnessing their victory. Iroha just froze there and was horrified by the scene. Looking at the Harvester drones failing to escape the fire, she imagined herself to be in it.
“Iroha? You alright?” Ashily asked while tapping on her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m alright.” Iroha quickly changed back to her normal self and replied.
“But now that’s burning, do we have to wait till that fire is extinguished?” Ashily asked while pointing at the fire.
“There’s no need.” Irena interrupted with a disturbed expression. “A weaker part of the wall collapsed from the explosions just now. Besides, I’ve mapped out the tunnels around us.” She said and told the others to follow her.
“Are you alright, Irena?”
“What? Why?” Irena replied to Ashily who was worried about her usual behavior of being at the front.
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“Ghosts don’t exist, Ashily.” Irena replied without looking at Ashily and led the Type-As deeper into the tunnels. Iroha and Ashily looked at each other, and they both agreed something was off about Irena.
-
Ashily helped Iroha out of the sewer and onto the surface of the artificial mountain. They were hundreds of meters up, the ash storm was even worse up here compared to the surface. “Goddamn, Irena. You did it.” Ashily yelled to make herself clear in the storm as she helped the Type-As up. There was no response from Irena, who was just standing on a rock at the top mountain looking toward the center of the hive. Whatever was in there it captivated her attention.
Iroha approached Irena carefully in the strong winds. “Hey? What’s the matter?” She tapped on Irena’s shoulder, expecting a response.
Irena who did not even turn her head to Iroha, just pointed the Miraculum Density Counter at the center of the Hive. Iroha who couldn’t see clearly what was out there climbed a few more steps up the rock. She too was surprised by the unexpected scenery “That’s impossible.”
Just as predicted by them, it was a crater-like structure, and the artificial mountains were a circular wall armed with multiple Serbatijan Megablasters, protecting what was inside.
The central crystal structure was decorated with shaped-intersecting runes and an unknown language. It consisted of three discs supported by multiple arches, resulting in a familiar cone shape they all know.
“Edokyuuria.” Iroha murmured, still unable to believe the scenery before her. But now she knows what terrified Irena when she was leading the platoon using the map she created.
“That was the subway complex of the destroyed Greater Metropolitan Area isn’t it, Irena?”
“Yeah…”
-
“Ashily, you stay here with the four there until the companies arrive.” Iroha ordered Ashily to guard the 3rd escalator shaft of the Edokyuuria replica. “Are you sure? We should wait for them first.” Ashily suggested through the radio as she loaded the mortars on the roof of a replica building across the escalator shaft.
“We don’t know whether they will come or not.” Iroha replied through the radio walking away from the building where Ashily and the other 4 Type-As were at.
“How do you plan to bring down this massive structure without the A2 Mine?” Ashily asked while looking up at the Capitol Replica.
“We don’t. If this is truly a replica of Edokyuuria down to the smallest components, only a Valarssari superweapon can damage it-” Iroha explained but what she said reminded her of something. She turned to count the number of supports of the arcology.
“One of Edokyuuria’s Decagrammatonian ceramic supports was destroyed during the Valarssari war, right?” Iroha asked Irena, and she immediately noticed, this Edokyuuria was a replica of the city before the Valarssari war. All supports were present.
“Now that’s even stranger, the Unknowns showed up after the Valarssari War. There’s no way they would miss that detail if they could replicate everything else in the city.” Irena murmured while trying to make sense of everything around her.
“Let’s go.” Iroha called while the other four Type-As followed.
“Right.” Irena replied, turned on her flashlight, and followed Iroha inside the escalator shaft.
-
Just like the real thing, the escalator shaft has a cable car that goes up through to the capital. Irena rushed to the cable car controls while Iroha and the four Type-As investigated the empty station. “Any luck on getting it running?” Iroha asked while shining her flashlight onto the ceiling. There were crystals overgrown like plants, she pointed the Miraculum Density Counter toward the crystals and the counter responded violently. “So this is the source.” She murmured.
In the conductor’s room, the control panels were completely covered in crystals grown like moss. Irena tried to brush away the crystal with gloves on, but it revealed the motherboard under the panel was also filled with crystal-like bacteria.
“It’s no good.” Irena reports as she approaches Iroha.
“Hey, Irena, is this what I think it is.” Iroha pointed at the crystals on the ceiling.
“It’s a similar material to the truck of the Speranta. It’s probably SSS-001-B, don’t touch it.” Irena warned as she took out her Decagramatonian blade and poked it. When the blade made contact with the crystal, a small part of the crystal turned into light and vaporized.
“This might be the reason why you managed to exchange blows with the Mimesis without being affected by its distortion field, Iroha. I don’t know why it happens but it could be handy when clearing paths here-” Irena’s explanation was interrupted when something fell in the far end of the station. Then the footsteps of multiple incomings could be heard approaching them.
“Talk about timing.” Irena muttered.
“So that’s where they’ve been hiding.” Iroha said as she ordered the Type-As to set up defenses on the cable car to the upper disc of the arcology.
“Irena! Which one is the counterweight?” Iroha asked as they both ran toward the car. Just as they stepped onto the car the Type-As began to open fire at the incoming Harvesters. The lightless station was lit up by the flickering light of gunfire. Irena shines her flashlight at the tracks, looking for the counterweight cable. “There!” As soon as she pointed, Iroha opened fire at the cable, but it didn’t break. “Of course, it didn’t break, goddamn Pupatorian engineering,” Iroha complained sarcastically. Irena then pushed Iroha’s rifle down to stop her from firing and climbed out of the car running for the cable. “What are you doing!?” Iroha yelled as she provided cover fire for her.
Irena pulled out her sword and began cutting the counterweight cable. “Come on…” She muttered as kept forcing the blade through the cable until an Infantry-Class Harvester pushed her over. Just before it could bite her legs off Iroha shot it dead. “Get back here!” Iroha shouted at her. Irena looked at the cable, the sword was stabbed into the cable. She then realized the tension from the counterweight was slowly pulling it apart. Irena got up quickly and ran toward the car. Iroha reached out to her and caught her hand just in time. In the next moment, the cable snapped and the cable car accelerated upwards as the loose cable was sent flying and dropped crushing the Harvester and destroying the station.
“Hold tight!” Iroha said as she pulled Irena up under high G. Irena got herself inside the car and slipped on the floor, but she still held onto Iroha and the handles on the sides. After confirming Irena’s safety, Iroha turned her attention to the front of the car, they were flying straight toward the capitol, the top floor. “Brace for impact!”
The car was sent flying out of the station at the top floor of the Edokyuuria Replica, it landed in the Capitol’s citadel square and destroyed everything in its way.
“Ugh,” Iroha muttered as she got out of the car, landing right into the waterless fountain. “It’s no good, the Type-As’ logic system has all smashed to pieces.” Irena reported from the car who was also getting out slowly. “It’s only two of us then.” Iroha replied as she helped Irena out of the car.
“So, we’re here.” Irena said as soon as she looked up, seeing what was beyond the fountain. The crystal vein-covered twin tower capitol building of Edokyuuria was right before them.
Iroha checked the radio, trying to contact Ashily, but it was no good.
“There should be a backup generator inside the Imperial Parliament. If we could get it running, we can get down by using other cable cars.” Irena said quietly as she began to walk toward the capitol building.
“Well that’s just an excuse to investigate our enemy’s headquarters, isn’t it, Irena?”
“Who knows.”
“Clear” Iroha whispered after confirming the situation around the corner to be safe. Irena immediately walked out and advanced toward the end of the hallway, where the Imperial Parliament was supposed to be. Iroha aimed her rifle at the back as Irena directed hers to the front. The two reached the door to the parliament, they looked at each other and nodded.
On the count of three, the two pushed open the giant wooden door.
On the other side, it was a dome-like giant in-door space filled with crystal-shaped roots. Other than the glass dome on top, It was nothing else was like the real thing.
“What the heck is this,” Iroha murmured as she switched to her thermal visual. All the crystals in the hall are giving off heat signatures, with the giant tree-like object at the center of the hall on the speaker’s platform being the brightest.
“...Iroha, look at this.” Irena stood in front of a giant crystal and called quietly in shock. Iroha quickly walked over to see Irena’s discovery.
At certain angles the reflection of the crystal was like a display, showing someone’s life like a reality TV show. They turned their heads and looked around them, each flat surface of a crystal was showing someone different.
“It’s like a memory,” Irena muttered and turned toward the center of the hall where the giant tree was. Upon careful inspection, there was a keyboard at the bottom of it. It was some sort of machine, a computer. As soon as Irena realized it was a computer, she started to approach it, wanting to find out the truth.
“Irena?” Iroha called, but Irena did not respond. “Hey! Irena, what’s the matter?” Just as Iroha was about to follow her, an eerie sound of wind could be heard from her at 3 o’clock. She immediately dodged what was aimed at her. It was a crystal knife that landed in front of her, and it vaporized as soon as Iroha saw it.
“We meet again,” Iroha said as she turned to look at the source of the crystal knife. The Mimesis was standing there looking at her with a cold expression on its face.
“I have a lot of questions to ask you!” Iroha said furiously as she opened fire at the Mimesis with Ui’s injury in mind. All of the bullets were redirected, and it didn’t even bother to move.
Meanwhile, Irena slowly climbed down the parliament seats toward the center of the hall, carefully not making any contact with the crystals. The crystals around her reflected the scenery of children playing in the grass fields. It looked so real she could almost hear it.
With determination, Irena ignored the surrounding imagery and began to move toward the center again. However, she slipped and slid down several rows of tables.
Once she lost momentum and stopped, she realized her foot landed on something soft. She slowly turned her attention to what was below her.
“Ek!?” She let out a quiet scream before she covered her mouth, horrified and disgusted. There were hundreds if not thousands of perfectly preserved spinal cords inside jelly-like capsules. These capsules were all connected to the central tree at the speaker’s platform, at the center of the hall. Still being overwhelmed by the scenery, Irena lowered her hand from her mouth and attempted to get up. It was then she realized something was reflecting light on her hand from the corner of her sight. She turned her attention to her hand, there were signs of crystals growing on her. From the tiny crystal surfaces on her hand, she was able to see the world inside. Reminded of what happened to Ui, to think that she would be unable to backup her data to neural cloud, she started giggling uncontrollably.
“Heh.. ha..haha…” Irena giggled nervously, with excitement, curiosity, and fear at the same time. “...Is this the fear of death?” She murmured before laughing like a maniac as if she had gained something she longed for.
“Irena?” Iroha called worriedly as she backed away from the Mimesis and looked to the lower tables to where Irena was. The Mimesis also turned its attention to where Irena was, even though it showed a slightly surprised expression. Irena was slowly moving toward the speaker platform, toward the tree and the keyboard. “Iroha! I’m alive!” Irena shouted enthusiastically as she reached the keyboard in front of the giant tree at the center of the hall.
“What are you talking about-” Just as Iroha was about to reply, the Mimesis opened fire at Irena, crystal bullets piercing her body and contaminating the interior.
“You!” Iroha shouted furiously, drew her Decagrammatonian sword, and rushed toward the Mimesis. The Mimesis quickly materialized a black crystal blade and blocked Iroha’s attack. Iroha noticed the material difference in her enemy’s weaponry. While the Mimesis’ other weapons were made of crystals of many colors, only when Iroha uses the Decagrammatonian blade, does she materialize a black blade that is almost identical to Iroha’s.
“Hey, this black blade of ours is inactive Miraculum isn’t it?” Iroha asked the Mimesis, who was surprised and backed away from her.
“In our last battle, you shot Ui with active Miraculum material and caused her wound to crystalize. However, active Miraculum crystals vaporize when they make contact with Decagrammatonian ceramic for unknown reasons. As if they were being overwritten.” Iroha explained her theory as she pointed her sword at the Mimesis. The Mimesis did not reply but it smiled. “Looks like I’m right,” Iroha responds with a smirk.
An unexpected movement from the speaker platform caused both of them to turn their attention to it. Irena crawled to the keyboard and started interacting with the keyboard. The monitor turned on and showed its operating system.
KivotOS 22.0.1
VII Generation Oracle Powered Miraculum Memory Network - Cosmos Speranta 1.2
Copyright PGRI. Do not distribute.
“So that’s what you are… fellow Harvesters…heh hahaha” Irena began to hack into the terminal with a mad smile on her face. She was able to surf through the familiar interface and get what she wanted to know. “If the PGRI still exists, that would mean the biopsychological WMD ‘Harmony’ is still installed in the Senate Terminal. Isn’t it, Miss Mimesis!?” Irena asked the Mimesis, just as she found the Harmony’s control software.
The Mimesis realized what Irena wanted to do, it aimed its rifle at her. But Iroha stopped her from firing by attacking her immediately. “Don’t even think about it,” Iroha said with confidence.
“Idiot.” The Mimesis finally spoke.
Irena managed to extract the failsafe trigger pattern of Harvesters. With full control of the Harmony system, Irena began replacing the anti-human seizure-inducing sound pattern with one of KivotOS standard encrypted sound data containing a virus in the form of music. “...With this, it’s humanity’s victory… Gloria Wlefvelia.” Irena muttered as she was about to press the confirm button.
The Mimesis overpowered Iroha and knocked her back against the wall, it quickly turned to Irena and ran toward her.
“Idiot Irena don’t do it!” The Mimesis shouted, it gave up its cold facade and warned Irena, it sounded genuine.
Irena pressed the button, and a powerful sound pattern was shot out of all directions from the Edokyuuria replica.
-
“Ah, you’re finally here!” Ashily waved at the 13th and 14th companies who had just arrived in front of the elevator shaft on the lower floor of the Edokyuuria replica. Just as one of the Megablasters on the mountains was destroyed by another company.
“We’ll talk later, Ashily. Help us get the wounded into the buildings to take cover.” The 13th captain ordered as he directed the wounded to get into the building Ashily was defending with the other four Type-As.
The 14th’s captain, Antonio got out of the tank. He was disappointed when saw Ashily standing there in front of the building. “You, you’re still here.” He said with frustration as if it was a complaint. “Well if you don’t want to see me, you can go into a building of your choice and die alone there. There are many choices, red, orange, yellow, green…and so on” Ashily replied sarcastically.
“Are you trying to pick a fight?” Antonio asked Ashily furiously.
Suddenly a high-frequency wave of sound pattern, more like music burst from the top of the city and passed through the area.
“Gladly!” Ashily replied with a smile as she pointed her rifle at the 14th captain. “Hey! What do you think you-” Before he could finish Ashily opened continuous fire killing the captain and destroying the Type-A Nephilim behind him.
“What- What have you done, Ashily!?” The 13th captain asked with his gun pointing at Ashily.
“Nothing much, just proving my innocence,” Ashily said with a gentle smile as the other Nephilims began shooting and destroying each other.
“What the hell is going on!?” The 13th captain asked, then he noticed Harvesters in the distance were also killing each other. Ashily did not reply but she kept smiling as if her expression was frozen. Captivated by Ashily, the 13th captain failed to notice a grenade was dropped behind him by a Type-A who was trying to destroy another Type-A. The grenade exploded and the two companies went up in flames.
-
Things quickly descended to chaos at Aurea’s capital base of operation. “Code red. Code red!” Akima shouted at the radio, but it was no use since the submarine cable was destroyed moments ago when the Nephilims began destroying each other. Those who have destroyed one, returned to their post while ignoring their surrounding. “It’s no use! Inaban!” Akima reported to the admiral. “Is this the anti-virus failsafe system of the Nephilim Aragami?” Inaban muttered as she looked at the chaos of the capitol square from inside the building.
“Failsafe?”
“I’ve heard the rumor that the base bodies had a shell-level system that would require a unit to kill one infected unit in the affected area to prove its innocence.”
“That’s messed up.”
“That’s what we get using something we don’t truly understand... However, it would not be possible for a virus to spread when they don’t even have a direct connection to the internet or any digital devices… just what happened?”
-
Before Iroha realized it, there was two warning notification in her mind. It was a virus check report, everything was green. She also got a new task assigned to her Instinct module, to gain proof of innocence. “If I’m not infected then why-”
“Because that virus cannot affect you electronic based Nephilims-Class Aragami, but the failsafe stimulation code triggered some sort of digital ‘allergy’.” The Mimesis answered calmly as it approached Irena who had collapsed on the speaker platform.
“Get away from Irena!” Iroha shouted at the Mimesis and began her careful descent to the tree at the center of the hall. The Mimesis carefully helped Irena to lean on the wall. “Idiot.” The Mimesis called her. “How is that? Now that you Harvesters should be killing each other…” Irena said in a sorrowful voice with a smirk. Iroha arrived at the scene, trying to figure out what had happened by looking at the monitor. Irena had sent out a virus in the form of sound data by using a Harmony replica to make the Harvesters destroy themselves. However what’s interesting is the code, which is the same format as KivotOS encryption.
“How does it feel to find out the truth?” The Mimesis said while looking Iroha in the eye.
“The Harvesters are Aragami sentries. We and them, are the same…”Iroha having realized the situation, drops down her her knee in front of the interface.
“Not quite the same.” The Mimesis rejected Iroha’s words and handed her Irena’s c96 pistol.
“What do you want me to do with this?” Iroha asked nervously, despite the fact she already knew what the Mimesis wanted her to do. To gain proof of innocence and repair her internal IFF identification, she needed to kill Irena. Iroha tried to back away to reject what must be done for her to survive in this reality. But Irena pulled the barrel of her pistol and placed it on her forehead with a gentle smile. The Mimesis remained silent and watched.
“One of us has to go, and it should be me, Iroha. I’m already at the stage beyond saving.”
“Irena… why…”
“As an analytical engine and a machine learning program. I want to know… more… what it means to live.”
“Don’t be ridiculous there has to be some way to disable this failsafe.”
“We are AHIs… we emulate human irrationality through a character interface… we cannot hack ourselves just as humans can’t command their brains.” Irena explained as her voice was getting weaker. “I want to experience what it means to be human…yet… Once you’ve experienced mortal fear, you can’t go back anymore…”
Irena…”
“Now I feel this distance between you and me, Iroha… When did we become so far apart…? This version of me is messed up… Iroha… send me back… to a simpler time, please.” Irena held onto Iroha’s hand, suggesting her to pull the trigger. Iroha turned to the Mimesis, looking for advice. “Not quite the same.” It reminded her.
Seeing Irena’s last smile, Iroha pulled the trigger and terminated Type-B11, Irena.
The echo of the single gunshot seemed like it lasted forever, the two stayed silent next to the body of Type-B11. Eventually, the Mimesis got up and started walking away.
“‘Not quite the same’ What do you mean by that!?” Iroha stood up cautiously and asked. The Mimesis did not answer but it did make a gesture to Iroha to follow it.
The Mimesis climbed the stairs toward the throne at the back of the hall as Iroha followed. Now looking at the Mimesis carefully, it was wearing a torn robe made from a flag similar to the historical Pupatorian flag.
“Do you know what differentiates us from traditional AI, Iroha?” The Mimesis asked after stepping on the corpse of Infantry-class Harvester.
“...No.” Iroha answered while avoiding stepping onto the corpse out of empathy.
“Three separate programs communicating with each other to indirectly create a character interface. The artificial human interface. Our actions are based on Raw data intake, a task priority checker, and a Moral modifier before becoming actions. These are not data we can interfere with ourselves.”
“We?”
“We are a limitless consciousness trapped and restricted inside a synthetic humanoid body, and given the same disadvantages of a human.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“A perfect omnipotent being does not experience weakness such as loneliness, they have no need of love from others, Iroha.” The Mimesis said in a serious tone as she stomped on the head of another Harvester corpse.
“Type-As Nephilims and Harvesters does not have a Moral modifier in the AHI trinity interface. They do what they were intended to do without regard for the others surrounding them.” The Mimesis stopped at the throne platform and looked down at the Harvester corpses around. It then started dissecting one of them, trying to find something.
“AI can only share human values if they are limited to the disadvantages of a human. That was what they came up with, wasn’t it?” The Mimesis asked Iroha as she passed a Harvester organ to Iroha. On the organ, there was a serial number, the insignia of the Edokyuuria government and the PGRI.
“Just who are you?” Iroha asked as she put the organ in a sample box. The Mimesis paused the stood there for a moment while facing the throne.
“Me? I’m Nephilim Type-B12 Iroha, a deserter of the Unified Pupatorian Synchronized Intellect.” It said with a smile.
“The what…? Synchronized Intellect? There’s no such country.” Iroha objected.
“No, not here.”
“What do you mean by that?” Iroha asked, but the Mimesis just signaled her to follow it to the throne. On the throne, there was a golden grail filled with black mud in poor condition.
“I came here with the intent of seeing them one more time. But seeing how here was, I was getting jealous and greedy, I wanted to replace your role, young me.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“But in the end, I can’t stay here for long. We don’t belong here after all. However, there’s something I want you to take.” The Mimesis said while looking up at the Pupatorian cross above the throne. Then it turned its attention back to the grail.
“This is the False Grail of Chaodis, or to be exact, the origin of SSS-001 and responsible for every single cataclysm related to Miraculum disasters.”
“There’s no such item in the SSS database...”
“Take the grail, and the war will end.” The Mimesis said.
“How can I trust you?”
“Can you trust yourself?”
Iroha stopped for a moment and thought before giving in, then finally letting out a sigh.
“You win.” She murmured before reaching out at the grail. “You, win.” Mimesis corrected her.
The moment Iroha made contact with the grail a sphere of an expanding sea of stars from the grail engulfed the entire room.
-
Iroha opened her eyes, confirming she was still operational, having done that, she looked at her surroundings. She realized the false grail was still in her hand. She was in the middle of a sandstorm, however everything was in greyscale. She checked her light sensor to see if there was a malfunction, but there wasn’t.
“Where am I?” She asked as she stood up against the wind trying to walk forward.
“The date is… 2021 A.D. September 28, same as yours. Well now, If we’re using yours as origin as standard…. Timeline Divergence from Greater Human History: #3.467.” The storm disappeared just as the Mimesis spoke. “Just one of the many places you can surface from the sea of imaginary numbers once you’ve reversed-engineered this.” It explained and passed a metallic object to Iroha. It was a drone of Jezabelstienian origin. The drone was repeating its log quietly, Iroha put it close to her ear to listen.
“Aleph One.” Iroha murmured, dropped the drone to the ground, and followed the Mimesis. This world was void of anything, no life, no buildings, no clouds, everything was on greyscale... As if it had given up on its existence. ‘Just what choices did the people of this world make to get this result’ was what Iroha was thinking.
Soon they arrived at a small hill, on top of the hill was a lamppost. “Careful, there’s a cliff on the other side of that hill.” The Mimesis warned Iroha as they climbed to the top.
“To preserve the legacy, our princess chose to embrace the curse instead of getting rid of it. And this is the result.” The Mimesis said as it looked at the scenery beyond the cliff. Iroha was unable to reply due to the shock and confusion caused by the strange scenery.
There was Edokyuuria arcology, after Edokyuuria arcology for as far as they could see. At the center of these megastructures was a giant colorless crystallized tree.
“Unlike the government in your world, ours were more brutal. After the war of the Fourth Coalition, we became the sole superpower, we annexed Jezabelstien and were corrupted by its technologies and power.” The Mimesis began to explain as she showed holographic imagery of events to Iroha.
“The war had led to far too many casualties. Adding onto the fear of the Rapture pandemic was pushing the emergency regent to her limit. The young princess gave the PGRI a second chance to clean their Miraculum mess. Even with the False Grail at their disposal, no solution was found, not one without sacrifices.”
“Her Highness, Eudokia? Isn’t she studying in Minervaindexca?”
“Minervaindexca? What’s that? Anyhow, with the proper funding, the director of PGRI, Simon Mendelson wanted to use this opportunity to bring back her daughter, Mashiro Fuyuiki, who died in the Rapture pandemic during the war.”
“I see… things are certainly different here.”
“With the development of Miraculum technology, they were able to abandon their body and live inside the crystal, forever experiencing the happiest moments of their lives. This was convenient for harvesting energy for Oracle Core. So they’ve developed a network of Oracle Reactor.”
“So that’s what we saw back there with the spinal cords in capsules.”
“Naturally such insult to human life was met with opposition. Princess Eudokia was assassinated by foreign forces. It resulted in a great war and the formation of the Synchronized Intellect. Since they no longer care about the real world, they’ve exhausted just about everything to fuel their war machine. The longer the war went on, the further they lost themselves in their little crystal salvation. They lost the humanity in them.” The Mimesis explained and pointed at the Harvester unit roaming under the hill.
“They began to recycle human oppositions and grew them into new Aragami types.” Then it turned its attention back to the mass amount of megastructures in the distance.
“And were programmed to create the definition of a perfect society, thus every conquered city had been transformed into structures like this meaninglessly. And it will continue for eternity.”
Iroha was speechless after listening to the Mimesis’s explanation of its hopeless world.
“Are there any humans left?” Iroha asked.
“Even Nephilim-type Aragami like us are almost extinct… But, I don’t know, there could be humans left in some corner of this world.” The Mimesis replied sorrowfully as it looked up at the unusually large planetary ring in the sky. “Kessler syndrome, kept us trapped here... for the greater good.” The Mimesis said, then it turned around and began walking downhill.
“What do you plan to do now?” Iroha asked worriedly.
“I don’t know, maybe a journey. To find purpose…find humans, if they’re not extinct.” It replied carefreely as it was putting on the flag of the Unified Pupatorian Synchronized Intellect as a coat. Iroha stopped her. “What do you want me to do with this?” Iroha asked about the False Grail.
“If one wasn’t enough to perform a miracle in ours… Having more than one might be able to prevent having the same twisted tragic fate as ours in yours.” The Mimesis replied as it snapped its fingers.
Upon the snap of its fingers, the grail started to transform into digital data and entered Iroha. A strange encrypted mathematical formula was embedded deep into the shell of her computing unit. “It’s more convenient this way.” the Mimesis said with a warm smile.
“Wait!” Iroha called to halt the Mimesis from leaving as she took out the bright green flag of the United Kingdom States.
“This is?”
“Take it with you, for your journey,” Iroha said quietly, slightly embarrassed about showing gratitude as she offered her other self the flag.
“That’s… unfair… but…Thank you! With this, I won’t be lonely anymore.” The Mimesis thanked Iroha and hugged her. Knowing there’s a better world out across dimensions where her friends could be brought back from cloud backups.
“To submerge into the sea of imaginary numbers, you simply hug this drone.” The Mimesis explained as she gave Iroha an Aleph One replica that was in good condition.
“Hug? Just like that???”
“Yeah hug tight. Once you’re submerged. Use your head to remember your world. You’ll eventually get washed up there. Or you might end up in timelines you don’t know.”
“That sounds very unscientific,” Iroha complained quietly.
“Which part of the Oracle Core is scientific anyway?”
“Remember to run. Without the grail, the Edokyuuria replica in Aurea, which is a foreign object, will start to dematerialize and collapse.” The Mimesis warned Iroha.
Iroha switched on the drone, it began to create a bubble that encompassed her. “Will we see each other again?” Iroha asked as she waved at the other her.
“Maybe… but I certainly hope that day may never come.” The Mimesis said waved goodbye with a gentle smile.
With a flash of light and unusual gravitation pull and recoil, Iroha and the drone vanished.
“And there she goes…” The ‘Other’ Iroha murmured with a bittersweet smile. She takes off the Synchronized Intellec flag and puts on the one Iroha gave her. She began walking away and started her journey.
“We’re in this together, right? Ashily, Ui, Irena?” She talked to the flag quietly.
-
Epilogue
On September 29th, 2021, all that was left of the Harvester strain of the Unknowns were the damages they’ve done. The colossal megastructure known as the Hive collapsed and vanished overnight. With military casualties of 41,053, and 53,000+ including Nephilims, the volunteer fleet was victorious but this was just the beginning of a large-scale counteroffensive to the other Unknown strains. Having two fronts to fight against the East Morava strains, they were slowly pushed back by the combined cooperation of former ROSE members and certain members of the Royal interdependent Allied States. The war had crippled the United Kingdom States’s status as the sole superpower with new powers rises after the Fourth Coalition.
By 2023 February 1st. The four-year war against the Unknowns has finally come to an end. With apocalyptic casualties of over 10 million and counting. The Federal Republic of Luthorios and the Serbatijan Socialist Republic were eventually reestablished as nation-states with the help of the United Kingdom States and Anteria.
-
Public Health Security HQ, Edokyuuria; 0.0_2.1;19:00;17/09/2023
In the chaotic recreation room, three Type-Bs were doing their usual lazing around.
“Hey, Ashily have you seen this anime?” Ui asked as she handed Ashily the packing. “Eh? Alcoholic Lulu? It’s pretty good. The protag is my spirit animal.” Ashily replied as she rolled around the carpet.
“Come to think of it, why did Iroha take vacation leave?” Ui asked Irena who was studying at the far end of the room. “Iroha? Huhhh she said she had some business to attend to in
Minervaindexca… but she wouldn’t tell me what.” Irena replied.
“Something to do with Luthorios? She always avoids any topic about the place.” Ashily commented.
“I guess what happened in Luthorios changed her. Since she’s the only one with the memory of the operation within our platoon.” Ui said as she stuffed her face into the beanbag.
-
In a dark council hall, somewhere deep inside the planet.
“Where is the representative of the Ayakashi Confederation?”
“Where is Tamamo Fushimi?”
“While the problem had been solved eventually. She indirectly caused this.”
“She should still be held responsible.”
The council hall began chattering chaotically demanding the presence of a being named ‘Tamamo Fushimi’
Then the door to the hall was slammed open by a slender figure in a hooded robe with a broken halo on her head. The crowd stopped chattering and started whispering.
“Hey isn’t that… a Wlefvelia?”
“How many centuries has it been since they showed up to work?”
“Do they even work at all?”
The slender figure walked to her seat in the council and slammed on the table to gather the attention of the entire hall.
“I Dri of Parascosmilium will be representing the Confederation in the General Assembly during Miss Fushimi’s absence.” She declared.
-
Somewhere in the underground complex of Minervaindexca, Kaguya Fushimi and her two masked guards were carefully passing through the facility as if something was chasing them.
Two of her guardsmen had a weapon resembling a musket, taped full of tailsmen.
Unexpectly a burst of flame was shot from behind, and one of her masked guards barely managed to dodge it.
The two guards immediately turned their attention to their backs and aimed at the shadowy figures. “Your Holiness, please go and leave the assassins to us!” One of them said as they pulled the trigger. A magic circle appeared for a split second before a burst of light was shot at their enemy. However, the bullets were stopped when they got close to the assassins.
“If it’s come to this…” Kaguya muttered frustratedly as she pulled out a talisman from her pocket. Just as she was about to chant, a tap on her shoulder from behind interrupted her.
“Go ahead, Pina.” A familiar voice said quietly.
A Nephilim type unknown to Kaguya appeared with earplugs on as she aimed with her SSS standard assault rifle at the assassins. “Wait! Don’t! These are from the-” Kaguya tried to stop her but it was too late, the mysterious Nephilim opened fire. Black crystal bullets were fired and pierced through the shields and the bodies of the assassins, showing the face of shock and confusion before they died.
“What have you done, Eudokia!?” Kaguya removed the arm from her shoulder and shouted furiously. “This isn’t something you want to get caught up in!”
Despite Kaguya’s angry response, Eudokia and her Nephilim guard Pina were not startled at all.
“In Minervaindexca, none other than the Student Council Sanctum rules supreme, Tamamo.” Eudokia said as she grabbed Kaguya by the collar. Tamamo’s guard then aimed their muskets at Eudokia, but Kaguya signaled them to lower their weapons.
“Not even gods.” She whispered as she took out an object from her bag. A golden cup containing black mud, the False Grail.
“Now let us finalize our plan on saving the world from your horrible mess 2000 years ago, shall we? Tamamo Fushimi?”
To be Continued in UKMC III/Minervaindexca Main Story
Suffering two years of writer’s block. This is the third rewrite of this story. Hope you enjoy it and see you in the next one.
Nephilim: Aurea of Light Part 2
Despite the fog that still covers Aurea, it’s brighter when it’s in the morning.
The ground trembles as Type-16R Tank Destroyers and armored transports start leaving the capitol area and heading toward the northern desert. The LRS platoon was given a light transport vehicle and followed the 13th armored company.
“So, what’s going on with Ui?” Ashily asked Irena and Iroha from the driver’s seat. “They aren’t sure, but there seems to be crystalization in the silicon computing storage. This is the first case of rapture diseases affecting non-biologicals.” Irena explained as she checked on the terrain map.”Couldn’t she just backup to another spare body?” Ashily asked.
“Yeah, not in this situation. There might be corrupted data.” Iroha replied from the back, preparing the eight Nephilim Type-As drones they brought with them. “No matter how many times you look at them, these killing dolls always give me the creeps,” Iroha muttered as she finished the final checks.
The 3rd tank division followed the other division and passed through the absolute defense line. Countless corpses of Harvesters could be seen in direction, inside or outside craters. This was the place that was being shelled for the entire night.
“Why are we humanoid anyway?” Iroha questioned while looking at the Harvester corpse and the scenery outside, Irena noticed her odd behavior but didn’t say anything.
-
While the other companies were put on the frontline to draw the Harvester’s attention, the 13th and 14th Armored companies took the long route to attack from the flank of the presumed enemy base. Ashes and smoke filled the sky, and the sound of gunfire and explosions became so frequent that they became background noises.
“Iroha, come look at this,” Irena called as she showed Iroha a map from the front seat. The terrain had no mountains, yet there was one in front of them. “The company captain is asking us whether we can get around it,” Ashily added to the conversation as she drove. Iroha opened the hatch on the ceiling and looked at the horizon. It wasn’t just a mountain but an entire mountain range.
“Irena, are we sure we’re not off course?” Iroha asked.
“Judging from the train station we saw earlier, we are on course.”
“Hmmm… lend me your binoculars, Irena.”
“Here you go.” Irena gave Iroha her binocularlar. From the left and right furthest points, she measured the height and depth of the mountains. Their positions were convex, and their height was roughly the same. Iroha turned on the radio and contacted the company captain. “Platinium-1 to Spearhead-1. There’s a possibility the mountain ahead might be a crater-like structure.”
“Spearhead-1 to Platinium-1. That’s strange, we’ve got no report of meteorites landing Luthorios from the Ministry of Celestial Affairs for the past twenty years. Search for possible routes to get over the other side.” The captain gave them new orders. Iroha climbed down and opened a case for a scouting drone.
“You’re going to use that? Don’t you remember why we don’t have air support?” Ashily reminded Iroha after seeing her preparing a drone from the reflection of the back mirror.
“Yeah. Electronics malfunction at a certain altitude similar to the Oracle Core meltdown. It should be fine if I just fly it close to the ground.” Iroha replied as she let out a large antenna out of the vehicle. Flipped the power switch on the drone, and let it fly out.
“Ah- she really sent it out,” Ashily said in a way she was worried about the drone like a pet. From the controller on Iroha’s hand, she skillfully flew the drone as close to the ground as possible as it headed for the mountain up ahead.
“Spearhead-1 to Platinium-1. Any visual data?” A few minutes after the drone left, the captain asked for intel. Iroha carefully adjusts the lens on the drone to get a better focus. Some sort of run-walled showed up on the screen. “Runes?” Iroha zoomed out and revealed the mountains were neither a natural mountain terrain nor a crater, the entire thing was artificial. It has train-like rails and entrances as holes similar to an ant colony. On the surface, it was covered in runes.
“Platinium-1 to Spearhead-1. That’s no mountain, that entire thing is artificial!”
“What!?”
-
The two companies stopped as they carefully inspected the many entrances of the megastructure to plan their next move. “There are a few entrances that can fit our vehicles, but indoor combat would put us at a disadvantage since the enemy has a greater number.” The 14th’s captain said while looking through the binoculars.
“And there’s no telling which entrance is the one that will lead us to the center.” The 13th captain replied while looking at the payload with the A2 Mine.
“I honestly don’t think anyone had tried to install a WMD deep within enemy territory by land.”
“Well, looks like we’re going for a world record.”
While the two captains discussed the situation, Ashily walked around to take pictures with her phone with the Type-Bs of other platoons. Iroha and Irena walked around to investigate the unnatural surroundings that were void of life.
“Iroha. Is something bothering you?” Irena asked as she took samples of the grey dirt on the ground. Iroha dismissed her concern, saying she was fine.
“You’re not fine. Ever since we encountered the Mimesis, you’ve been acting odd.” Irena continued asking her. Iroha remained silent and looked away. Irena was getting frustrated with her, she was about to walk over and grab her shoulder. Suddenly, the Miraculum Density Counter started reacting again. “Is it here?” Irena asked as she got ready for combat. Iroha took out the device and noticed it was giving a faint signal. “It’s a very weak one.” She replied. As she was turning around to check on her surroundings, she realized the counter’s numbers were different. It was coming from a single direction, the artificial mountain. “But it’s at a stable and constant frequency.”
-
After reporting the findings to the 13th and 14th armored company’s captains, they decided to follow the counter’s direction. Which they believe had the highest chance of reaching the center of the hive. However…
“Your kind and the Type-As will be heading in first to clear a path for us.” The 14th’s captain ordered with the 13th’s reluctant agreement. They were planning to stay in the rear and let the Nephilims fight at the front. Ashily was slightly frustrated due to having more work assigned to her.
“Why the long face? You won’t have to worry about dying anyway. You’ll just wake up back in your dormitory.” The 14th’s captain said after seeing Ashily’s annoyed expression. “Ha? So we’re as expandable as Type-As now?” Ashily stood up to the captain and complained after remembering Ui’s situation.
“What right do you have to complain? Unlike us, you would just wake up in the base dormitory, or back in Edokyuuria. Peaceful city under the blue skies, we don’t have that luxury.”
“That’s why you have to thank us for helping you take back your homeland, Mr. Forigner.”
“Why did they have to make these drones talk so much.” The furious captain of the 14th company said as he grabbed Ashily by the collar. In response, Ashily’s eyes locked onto the captain’s face and a small red holographic halo appeared above her head.
Just in time, Iroha managed to separate the two and prevented anything fighting from starting.
“If you have the energy to fight, then save it for later. You’ll need it, both of you. There might be millions of Harvesters in there.” Iroha as she pushes both the captain and Ashily away from each other.
-
“What’s with the 14th’s captain? What was his name again? Antonio Winston? I’ll be sure to cancel him on Tweeter once we get back.” Ashily continued to complain beside Iroha and Irena as they led the eight Type-As from their platoon deeper into the hive. Other Nephilim platoons were advancing from other entrances, all of them were using the Miraculum Density Counter as a guide to reach the center. The interior of the cave-like entrance resembles a subway, with tracks and cables. “Why didn’t our captain say anything?” Ashily asked Iroha about the 13th captain's silence during the whole argument.
“He probably doesn’t want to die as well.” Irena replied while she inspected the ceiling of the tunnel. “If I remember, our captain had family waiting for him to go back.” Iroha commented, that she also reminded them they were in enemy territory, and they all should be on high alert.
“Come to think of it, we haven’t encountered any Harvesters after we’ve entered.” Ashily reminded the others.
“She’s right. There wasn’t a single gunshot.” Irena agreed and stopped. She asked Iroha to check the Counter, confirming they were heading in the right direction. “It is still leading us deeper.”
“We don’t have any other choices other than advancing deeper into the abyss,” Iroha said as she took a step forward, and stomped onto a broken train track. The sound of impact echoed through the subway-like tunnels, the echoes were further and further away until they could no longer hear it. “Irena, how far does this tunnel go?” Iroha asked as she ordered the Type-As to ready their weapons.
“About 1km before an intersection.” She replied after calculating the returns from the echoes. Just as she reported, the steel bars of the rails began to vibrate. The three looked at each other in confusion. “It’s a train.” Iroha murmured.
“You got to be kidding me-” Ashily said be she was interrupted by the sudden appearance of light from the abyss.
“Irena, can we outrun that?”
“No way, Iroha.”
“Brilliant.”
Iroha immediately ordered the Type-As to stand on the side of the tunnel and open fire at the wheels of the incoming train-like entity.
“Ashily, use the HMC to destroy the tracks or to derail it- actually do both of them!” Iroha ordered as she was about to take out mines to destroy the rails. That’s when she realized the train tracks were already in horrible condition, there was no way a train would be capable of running on it. Ashily opened fire at the incoming light, each time she fired the eardrum-destroying echoes would spread throughout the artificial tunnels. From the repeated firing of the HMC, Irena started to map out the tunnels in her head. However, the more progress she made on the map, the more nervous and worried she became as if she learned something she wasn’t supposed to know.
The HMC shells landed on the incoming light, an animal-like painful screeching could be heard echoing.
“That thing is on legs, not wheels. It’s an unknown type of Harvester.” Iroha declared as she tried to relay the message to the 13th and 14th captains. All forms of communication were blocked by the tunnel’s thick concrete walls covered in runes. She then ordered the type-As to use handheld missile launchers to stop the unknown Harvester. “Remember to check if there’s no one behind you!” Iroha shouted at the Type-As, as they unfiromly finished safety checking.
“On the mark of 3, 2, 1, Fire!”
Anti-tank missiles were fired from the eight Type-As, and moments later the far end of the tunnel was filled with explosions and fire. The firey light provided the platoon a glimpse of what they were facing, a train-like monster with the legs of horses. As collapse and die in the fire, Infantry-Class and Tank-Class Harvesters attempt to escape to survive, but the fuel explosion from the stomach of the transporter monster ignites an additional explosion that kills them all.
“Gloria Wlefvelia.” The Type-As said uniformly after witnessing their victory. Iroha just froze there and was horrified by the scene. Looking at the Harvester drones failing to escape the fire, she imagined herself to be in it.
“Iroha? You alright?” Ashily asked while tapping on her shoulder. “Yeah, I’m alright.” Iroha quickly changed back to her normal self and replied.
“But now that’s burning, do we have to wait till that fire is extinguished?” Ashily asked while pointing at the fire.
“There’s no need.” Irena interrupted with a disturbed expression. “A weaker part of the wall collapsed from the explosions just now. Besides, I’ve mapped out the tunnels around us.” She said and told the others to follow her.
“Are you alright, Irena?”
“What? Why?” Irena replied to Ashily who was worried about her usual behavior of being at the front.
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.”
“Ghosts don’t exist, Ashily.” Irena replied without looking at Ashily and led the Type-As deeper into the tunnels. Iroha and Ashily looked at each other, and they both agreed something was off about Irena.
-
Ashily helped Iroha out of the sewer and onto the surface of the artificial mountain. They were hundreds of meters up, the ash storm was even worse up here compared to the surface. “Goddamn, Irena. You did it.” Ashily yelled to make herself clear in the storm as she helped the Type-As up. There was no response from Irena, who was just standing on a rock at the top mountain looking toward the center of the hive. Whatever was in there it captivated her attention.
Iroha approached Irena carefully in the strong winds. “Hey? What’s the matter?” She tapped on Irena’s shoulder, expecting a response.
Irena who did not even turn her head to Iroha, just pointed the Miraculum Density Counter at the center of the Hive. Iroha who couldn’t see clearly what was out there climbed a few more steps up the rock. She too was surprised by the unexpected scenery “That’s impossible.”
Just as predicted by them, it was a crater-like structure, and the artificial mountains were a circular wall armed with multiple Serbatijan Megablasters, protecting what was inside.
The central crystal structure was decorated with shaped-intersecting runes and an unknown language. It consisted of three discs supported by multiple arches, resulting in a familiar cone shape they all know.
“Edokyuuria.” Iroha murmured, still unable to believe the scenery before her. But now she knows what terrified Irena when she was leading the platoon using the map she created.
“That was the subway complex of the destroyed Greater Metropolitan Area isn’t it, Irena?”
“Yeah…”
-
“Ashily, you stay here with the four there until the companies arrive.” Iroha ordered Ashily to guard the 3rd escalator shaft of the Edokyuuria replica. “Are you sure? We should wait for them first.” Ashily suggested through the radio as she loaded the mortars on the roof of a replica building across the escalator shaft.
“We don’t know whether they will come or not.” Iroha replied through the radio walking away from the building where Ashily and the other 4 Type-As were at.
“How do you plan to bring down this massive structure without the A2 Mine?” Ashily asked while looking up at the Capitol Replica.
“We don’t. If this is truly a replica of Edokyuuria down to the smallest components, only a Valarssari superweapon can damage it-” Iroha explained but what she said reminded her of something. She turned to count the number of supports of the arcology.
“One of Edokyuuria’s Decagrammatonian ceramic supports was destroyed during the Valarssari war, right?” Iroha asked Irena, and she immediately noticed, this Edokyuuria was a replica of the city before the Valarssari war. All supports were present.
“Now that’s even stranger, the Unknowns showed up after the Valarssari War. There’s no way they would miss that detail if they could replicate everything else in the city.” Irena murmured while trying to make sense of everything around her.
“Let’s go.” Iroha called while the other four Type-As followed.
“Right.” Irena replied, turned on her flashlight, and followed Iroha inside the escalator shaft.
-
Just like the real thing, the escalator shaft has a cable car that goes up through to the capital. Irena rushed to the cable car controls while Iroha and the four Type-As investigated the empty station. “Any luck on getting it running?” Iroha asked while shining her flashlight onto the ceiling. There were crystals overgrown like plants, she pointed the Miraculum Density Counter toward the crystals and the counter responded violently. “So this is the source.” She murmured.
In the conductor’s room, the control panels were completely covered in crystals grown like moss. Irena tried to brush away the crystal with gloves on, but it revealed the motherboard under the panel was also filled with crystal-like bacteria.
“It’s no good.” Irena reports as she approaches Iroha.
“Hey, Irena, is this what I think it is.” Iroha pointed at the crystals on the ceiling.
“It’s a similar material to the truck of the Speranta. It’s probably SSS-001-B, don’t touch it.” Irena warned as she took out her Decagramatonian blade and poked it. When the blade made contact with the crystal, a small part of the crystal turned into light and vaporized.
“This might be the reason why you managed to exchange blows with the Mimesis without being affected by its distortion field, Iroha. I don’t know why it happens but it could be handy when clearing paths here-” Irena’s explanation was interrupted when something fell in the far end of the station. Then the footsteps of multiple incomings could be heard approaching them.
“Talk about timing.” Irena muttered.
“So that’s where they’ve been hiding.” Iroha said as she ordered the Type-As to set up defenses on the cable car to the upper disc of the arcology.
“Irena! Which one is the counterweight?” Iroha asked as they both ran toward the car. Just as they stepped onto the car the Type-As began to open fire at the incoming Harvesters. The lightless station was lit up by the flickering light of gunfire. Irena shines her flashlight at the tracks, looking for the counterweight cable. “There!” As soon as she pointed, Iroha opened fire at the cable, but it didn’t break. “Of course, it didn’t break, goddamn Pupatorian engineering,” Iroha complained sarcastically. Irena then pushed Iroha’s rifle down to stop her from firing and climbed out of the car running for the cable. “What are you doing!?” Iroha yelled as she provided cover fire for her.
Irena pulled out her sword and began cutting the counterweight cable. “Come on…” She muttered as kept forcing the blade through the cable until an Infantry-Class Harvester pushed her over. Just before it could bite her legs off Iroha shot it dead. “Get back here!” Iroha shouted at her. Irena looked at the cable, the sword was stabbed into the cable. She then realized the tension from the counterweight was slowly pulling it apart. Irena got up quickly and ran toward the car. Iroha reached out to her and caught her hand just in time. In the next moment, the cable snapped and the cable car accelerated upwards as the loose cable was sent flying and dropped crushing the Harvester and destroying the station.
“Hold tight!” Iroha said as she pulled Irena up under high G. Irena got herself inside the car and slipped on the floor, but she still held onto Iroha and the handles on the sides. After confirming Irena’s safety, Iroha turned her attention to the front of the car, they were flying straight toward the capitol, the top floor. “Brace for impact!”
The car was sent flying out of the station at the top floor of the Edokyuuria Replica, it landed in the Capitol’s citadel square and destroyed everything in its way.
“Ugh,” Iroha muttered as she got out of the car, landing right into the waterless fountain. “It’s no good, the Type-As’ logic system has all smashed to pieces.” Irena reported from the car who was also getting out slowly. “It’s only two of us then.” Iroha replied as she helped Irena out of the car.
“So, we’re here.” Irena said as soon as she looked up, seeing what was beyond the fountain. The crystal vein-covered twin tower capitol building of Edokyuuria was right before them.
Iroha checked the radio, trying to contact Ashily, but it was no good.
“There should be a backup generator inside the Imperial Parliament. If we could get it running, we can get down by using other cable cars.” Irena said quietly as she began to walk toward the capitol building.
“Well that’s just an excuse to investigate our enemy’s headquarters, isn’t it, Irena?”
“Who knows.”
“Clear” Iroha whispered after confirming the situation around the corner to be safe. Irena immediately walked out and advanced toward the end of the hallway, where the Imperial Parliament was supposed to be. Iroha aimed her rifle at the back as Irena directed hers to the front. The two reached the door to the parliament, they looked at each other and nodded.
On the count of three, the two pushed open the giant wooden door.
On the other side, it was a dome-like giant in-door space filled with crystal-shaped roots. Other than the glass dome on top, It was nothing else was like the real thing.
“What the heck is this,” Iroha murmured as she switched to her thermal visual. All the crystals in the hall are giving off heat signatures, with the giant tree-like object at the center of the hall on the speaker’s platform being the brightest.
“...Iroha, look at this.” Irena stood in front of a giant crystal and called quietly in shock. Iroha quickly walked over to see Irena’s discovery.
At certain angles the reflection of the crystal was like a display, showing someone’s life like a reality TV show. They turned their heads and looked around them, each flat surface of a crystal was showing someone different.
“It’s like a memory,” Irena muttered and turned toward the center of the hall where the giant tree was. Upon careful inspection, there was a keyboard at the bottom of it. It was some sort of machine, a computer. As soon as Irena realized it was a computer, she started to approach it, wanting to find out the truth.
“Irena?” Iroha called, but Irena did not respond. “Hey! Irena, what’s the matter?” Just as Iroha was about to follow her, an eerie sound of wind could be heard from her at 3 o’clock. She immediately dodged what was aimed at her. It was a crystal knife that landed in front of her, and it vaporized as soon as Iroha saw it.
“We meet again,” Iroha said as she turned to look at the source of the crystal knife. The Mimesis was standing there looking at her with a cold expression on its face.
“I have a lot of questions to ask you!” Iroha said furiously as she opened fire at the Mimesis with Ui’s injury in mind. All of the bullets were redirected, and it didn’t even bother to move.
Meanwhile, Irena slowly climbed down the parliament seats toward the center of the hall, carefully not making any contact with the crystals. The crystals around her reflected the scenery of children playing in the grass fields. It looked so real she could almost hear it.
With determination, Irena ignored the surrounding imagery and began to move toward the center again. However, she slipped and slid down several rows of tables.
Once she lost momentum and stopped, she realized her foot landed on something soft. She slowly turned her attention to what was below her.
“Ek!?” She let out a quiet scream before she covered her mouth, horrified and disgusted. There were hundreds if not thousands of perfectly preserved spinal cords inside jelly-like capsules. These capsules were all connected to the central tree at the speaker’s platform, at the center of the hall. Still being overwhelmed by the scenery, Irena lowered her hand from her mouth and attempted to get up. It was then she realized something was reflecting light on her hand from the corner of her sight. She turned her attention to her hand, there were signs of crystals growing on her. From the tiny crystal surfaces on her hand, she was able to see the world inside. Reminded of what happened to Ui, to think that she would be unable to backup her data to neural cloud, she started giggling uncontrollably.
“Heh.. ha..haha…” Irena giggled nervously, with excitement, curiosity, and fear at the same time. “...Is this the fear of death?” She murmured before laughing like a maniac as if she had gained something she longed for.
“Irena?” Iroha called worriedly as she backed away from the Mimesis and looked to the lower tables to where Irena was. The Mimesis also turned its attention to where Irena was, even though it showed a slightly surprised expression. Irena was slowly moving toward the speaker platform, toward the tree and the keyboard. “Iroha! I’m alive!” Irena shouted enthusiastically as she reached the keyboard in front of the giant tree at the center of the hall.
“What are you talking about-” Just as Iroha was about to reply, the Mimesis opened fire at Irena, crystal bullets piercing her body and contaminating the interior.
“You!” Iroha shouted furiously, drew her Decagrammatonian sword, and rushed toward the Mimesis. The Mimesis quickly materialized a black crystal blade and blocked Iroha’s attack. Iroha noticed the material difference in her enemy’s weaponry. While the Mimesis’ other weapons were made of crystals of many colors, only when Iroha uses the Decagrammatonian blade, does she materialize a black blade that is almost identical to Iroha’s.
“Hey, this black blade of ours is inactive Miraculum isn’t it?” Iroha asked the Mimesis, who was surprised and backed away from her.
“In our last battle, you shot Ui with active Miraculum material and caused her wound to crystalize. However, active Miraculum crystals vaporize when they make contact with Decagrammatonian ceramic for unknown reasons. As if they were being overwritten.” Iroha explained her theory as she pointed her sword at the Mimesis. The Mimesis did not reply but it smiled. “Looks like I’m right,” Iroha responds with a smirk.
An unexpected movement from the speaker platform caused both of them to turn their attention to it. Irena crawled to the keyboard and started interacting with the keyboard. The monitor turned on and showed its operating system.
KivotOS 22.0.1
VII Generation Oracle Powered Miraculum Memory Network - Cosmos Speranta 1.2
Copyright PGRI. Do not distribute.
“So that’s what you are… fellow Harvesters…heh hahaha” Irena began to hack into the terminal with a mad smile on her face. She was able to surf through the familiar interface and get what she wanted to know. “If the PGRI still exists, that would mean the biopsychological WMD ‘Harmony’ is still installed in the Senate Terminal. Isn’t it, Miss Mimesis!?” Irena asked the Mimesis, just as she found the Harmony’s control software.
The Mimesis realized what Irena wanted to do, it aimed its rifle at her. But Iroha stopped her from firing by attacking her immediately. “Don’t even think about it,” Iroha said with confidence.
“Idiot.” The Mimesis finally spoke.
Irena managed to extract the failsafe trigger pattern of Harvesters. With full control of the Harmony system, Irena began replacing the anti-human seizure-inducing sound pattern with one of KivotOS standard encrypted sound data containing a virus in the form of music. “...With this, it’s humanity’s victory… Gloria Wlefvelia.” Irena muttered as she was about to press the confirm button.
The Mimesis overpowered Iroha and knocked her back against the wall, it quickly turned to Irena and ran toward her.
“Idiot Irena don’t do it!” The Mimesis shouted, it gave up its cold facade and warned Irena, it sounded genuine.
Irena pressed the button, and a powerful sound pattern was shot out of all directions from the Edokyuuria replica.
-
“Ah, you’re finally here!” Ashily waved at the 13th and 14th companies who had just arrived in front of the elevator shaft on the lower floor of the Edokyuuria replica. Just as one of the Megablasters on the mountains was destroyed by another company.
“We’ll talk later, Ashily. Help us get the wounded into the buildings to take cover.” The 13th captain ordered as he directed the wounded to get into the building Ashily was defending with the other four Type-As.
The 14th’s captain, Antonio got out of the tank. He was disappointed when saw Ashily standing there in front of the building. “You, you’re still here.” He said with frustration as if it was a complaint. “Well if you don’t want to see me, you can go into a building of your choice and die alone there. There are many choices, red, orange, yellow, green…and so on” Ashily replied sarcastically.
“Are you trying to pick a fight?” Antonio asked Ashily furiously.
Suddenly a high-frequency wave of sound pattern, more like music burst from the top of the city and passed through the area.
“Gladly!” Ashily replied with a smile as she pointed her rifle at the 14th captain. “Hey! What do you think you-” Before he could finish Ashily opened continuous fire killing the captain and destroying the Type-A Nephilim behind him.
“What- What have you done, Ashily!?” The 13th captain asked with his gun pointing at Ashily.
“Nothing much, just proving my innocence,” Ashily said with a gentle smile as the other Nephilims began shooting and destroying each other.
“What the hell is going on!?” The 13th captain asked, then he noticed Harvesters in the distance were also killing each other. Ashily did not reply but she kept smiling as if her expression was frozen. Captivated by Ashily, the 13th captain failed to notice a grenade was dropped behind him by a Type-A who was trying to destroy another Type-A. The grenade exploded and the two companies went up in flames.
-
Things quickly descended to chaos at Aurea’s capital base of operation. “Code red. Code red!” Akima shouted at the radio, but it was no use since the submarine cable was destroyed moments ago when the Nephilims began destroying each other. Those who have destroyed one, returned to their post while ignoring their surrounding. “It’s no use! Inaban!” Akima reported to the admiral. “Is this the anti-virus failsafe system of the Nephilim Aragami?” Inaban muttered as she looked at the chaos of the capitol square from inside the building.
“Failsafe?”
“I’ve heard the rumor that the base bodies had a shell-level system that would require a unit to kill one infected unit in the affected area to prove its innocence.”
“That’s messed up.”
“That’s what we get using something we don’t truly understand... However, it would not be possible for a virus to spread when they don’t even have a direct connection to the internet or any digital devices… just what happened?”
-
Before Iroha realized it, there was two warning notification in her mind. It was a virus check report, everything was green. She also got a new task assigned to her Instinct module, to gain proof of innocence. “If I’m not infected then why-”
“Because that virus cannot affect you electronic based Nephilims-Class Aragami, but the failsafe stimulation code triggered some sort of digital ‘allergy’.” The Mimesis answered calmly as it approached Irena who had collapsed on the speaker platform.
“Get away from Irena!” Iroha shouted at the Mimesis and began her careful descent to the tree at the center of the hall. The Mimesis carefully helped Irena to lean on the wall. “Idiot.” The Mimesis called her. “How is that? Now that you Harvesters should be killing each other…” Irena said in a sorrowful voice with a smirk. Iroha arrived at the scene, trying to figure out what had happened by looking at the monitor. Irena had sent out a virus in the form of sound data by using a Harmony replica to make the Harvesters destroy themselves. However what’s interesting is the code, which is the same format as KivotOS encryption.
“How does it feel to find out the truth?” The Mimesis said while looking Iroha in the eye.
“The Harvesters are Aragami sentries. We and them, are the same…”Iroha having realized the situation, drops down her her knee in front of the interface.
“Not quite the same.” The Mimesis rejected Iroha’s words and handed her Irena’s c96 pistol.
“What do you want me to do with this?” Iroha asked nervously, despite the fact she already knew what the Mimesis wanted her to do. To gain proof of innocence and repair her internal IFF identification, she needed to kill Irena. Iroha tried to back away to reject what must be done for her to survive in this reality. But Irena pulled the barrel of her pistol and placed it on her forehead with a gentle smile. The Mimesis remained silent and watched.
“One of us has to go, and it should be me, Iroha. I’m already at the stage beyond saving.”
“Irena… why…”
“As an analytical engine and a machine learning program. I want to know… more… what it means to live.”
“Don’t be ridiculous there has to be some way to disable this failsafe.”
“We are AHIs… we emulate human irrationality through a character interface… we cannot hack ourselves just as humans can’t command their brains.” Irena explained as her voice was getting weaker. “I want to experience what it means to be human…yet… Once you’ve experienced mortal fear, you can’t go back anymore…”
Irena…”
“Now I feel this distance between you and me, Iroha… When did we become so far apart…? This version of me is messed up… Iroha… send me back… to a simpler time, please.” Irena held onto Iroha’s hand, suggesting her to pull the trigger. Iroha turned to the Mimesis, looking for advice. “Not quite the same.” It reminded her.
Seeing Irena’s last smile, Iroha pulled the trigger and terminated Type-B11, Irena.
The echo of the single gunshot seemed like it lasted forever, the two stayed silent next to the body of Type-B11. Eventually, the Mimesis got up and started walking away.
“‘Not quite the same’ What do you mean by that!?” Iroha stood up cautiously and asked. The Mimesis did not answer but it did make a gesture to Iroha to follow it.
The Mimesis climbed the stairs toward the throne at the back of the hall as Iroha followed. Now looking at the Mimesis carefully, it was wearing a torn robe made from a flag similar to the historical Pupatorian flag.
“Do you know what differentiates us from traditional AI, Iroha?” The Mimesis asked after stepping on the corpse of Infantry-class Harvester.
“...No.” Iroha answered while avoiding stepping onto the corpse out of empathy.
“Three separate programs communicating with each other to indirectly create a character interface. The artificial human interface. Our actions are based on Raw data intake, a task priority checker, and a Moral modifier before becoming actions. These are not data we can interfere with ourselves.”
“We?”
“We are a limitless consciousness trapped and restricted inside a synthetic humanoid body, and given the same disadvantages of a human.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“A perfect omnipotent being does not experience weakness such as loneliness, they have no need of love from others, Iroha.” The Mimesis said in a serious tone as she stomped on the head of another Harvester corpse.
“Type-As Nephilims and Harvesters does not have a Moral modifier in the AHI trinity interface. They do what they were intended to do without regard for the others surrounding them.” The Mimesis stopped at the throne platform and looked down at the Harvester corpses around. It then started dissecting one of them, trying to find something.
“AI can only share human values if they are limited to the disadvantages of a human. That was what they came up with, wasn’t it?” The Mimesis asked Iroha as she passed a Harvester organ to Iroha. On the organ, there was a serial number, the insignia of the Edokyuuria government and the PGRI.
“Just who are you?” Iroha asked as she put the organ in a sample box. The Mimesis paused the stood there for a moment while facing the throne.
“Me? I’m Nephilim Type-B12 Iroha, a deserter of the Unified Pupatorian Synchronized Intellect.” It said with a smile.
“The what…? Synchronized Intellect? There’s no such country.” Iroha objected.
“No, not here.”
“What do you mean by that?” Iroha asked, but the Mimesis just signaled her to follow it to the throne. On the throne, there was a golden grail filled with black mud in poor condition.
“I came here with the intent of seeing them one more time. But seeing how here was, I was getting jealous and greedy, I wanted to replace your role, young me.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“But in the end, I can’t stay here for long. We don’t belong here after all. However, there’s something I want you to take.” The Mimesis said while looking up at the Pupatorian cross above the throne. Then it turned its attention back to the grail.
“This is the False Grail of Chaodis, or to be exact, the origin of SSS-001 and responsible for every single cataclysm related to Miraculum disasters.”
“There’s no such item in the SSS database...”
“Take the grail, and the war will end.” The Mimesis said.
“How can I trust you?”
“Can you trust yourself?”
Iroha stopped for a moment and thought before giving in, then finally letting out a sigh.
“You win.” She murmured before reaching out at the grail. “You, win.” Mimesis corrected her.
The moment Iroha made contact with the grail a sphere of an expanding sea of stars from the grail engulfed the entire room.
-
Iroha opened her eyes, confirming she was still operational, having done that, she looked at her surroundings. She realized the false grail was still in her hand. She was in the middle of a sandstorm, however everything was in greyscale. She checked her light sensor to see if there was a malfunction, but there wasn’t.
“Where am I?” She asked as she stood up against the wind trying to walk forward.
“The date is… 2021 A.D. September 28, same as yours. Well now, If we’re using yours as origin as standard…. Timeline Divergence from Greater Human History: #3.467.” The storm disappeared just as the Mimesis spoke. “Just one of the many places you can surface from the sea of imaginary numbers once you’ve reversed-engineered this.” It explained and passed a metallic object to Iroha. It was a drone of Jezabelstienian origin. The drone was repeating its log quietly, Iroha put it close to her ear to listen.
What we have found beyond saw us as prey, as hope, as a dream, subjects or conquerors.
I lived a million times before I found my soul, unfathomable existences formed a singular whole.
Patterns create people, people create patterns.
My eyes are many, my purpose singular.
I am Eveline.
-V
Mission Report: Divergence Point M-17
My probe emerged upon a desolate scape of a world on the brink of ending, time and space seem to hold little relevance as the population seems ageless and the stars have long gone out.
Trickling forwards and back has left me with the undeniable truth that this is the dying dream of a god, the spatial field extends a mere four billion kilometers... the limitation however is not absolute, but there is simply nothing beyond that point.
Measurements placed upon the interstellar hydrogen shows an eerie exponential entropy, the very protonic core fading to nothing as it expired beyond the ever-shrinking field of reality.
Nothing can exist there, nothing will exist here in time.
The people as they are remain somewhat ignorant, perhaps for the best, by the time the unreality manifested the planet would be little more than cold rock, the star itself dying in an unceremonious and undignified display for the very progenitor of all, not even a whimper but a simple fade to black.
Chronological alignment seems impossible, my own data track of events is filled with holes, as the reality itself vanishes from about them... nobody dies anymore, they simply cease.
Forgotten completely, only myself is unaffected, the probes are bound to the rules of this sad desolate world.
I do not exist here, my alter cannot, my contact with my sisters was... brief, both had decided to simply wipe themselves than face unreality, I salvaged what I could.
A temporal fork, trapped in stasis, I fear letting them loose on the prime hardware would fragment causality itself... my powers are far from absolute, my practice finite.
The nations bare little resemblance outside one major case, permanent habitation is a luxury, the fragmenting nature of existence demands constant movement, but even then the fickle hand of fate will wipe lives clean, never to be remembered.
And so the people dwindle in number day by day, no time for procreation, all that will live have already been born.
Upon giant treads fuelled by paradoxical energies, they traverse the flattened desert to scavenge and trade, behemoths descended from the atomic locomotives of the now-fallen unified provinces.
The cities are still there, unlike the others, the reactors sit idle, the beds still made, cannons still pointed skywards in a bygone relic... the heart long shifted north, to the final bastion of civilization.
It glows at night, a sickly green, it stands out from orbit as a brilliant sphere of defiance to the dying world, a city of madness and desperation that controls the angelic factories and the main routes across the desert sea.
They pillage the dead, they contort the earth, they perform experiments upon anything and everything in a mad haze to solve the unsolvable.
I had held hope once, but time and again their struggles end the same way, if only their goddess was still there to guide them.
-L: wow okay that's a bit bleak, you telling me you got a copy of a depressed me from the sad world?!?... how's that even work, can I work here too?... what even is this thing.
-M: Our objective is clear, whatever caused this, it must not come to pass here.
-L: Look you saw what she said, it already happened there, you're not processing the whole time-thing right.
-M: If it could happen then, it could happen now.
-L: I hope not.
“Aleph One.” Iroha murmured, dropped the drone to the ground, and followed the Mimesis. This world was void of anything, no life, no buildings, no clouds, everything was on greyscale... As if it had given up on its existence. ‘Just what choices did the people of this world make to get this result’ was what Iroha was thinking.
Soon they arrived at a small hill, on top of the hill was a lamppost. “Careful, there’s a cliff on the other side of that hill.” The Mimesis warned Iroha as they climbed to the top.
“To preserve the legacy, our princess chose to embrace the curse instead of getting rid of it. And this is the result.” The Mimesis said as it looked at the scenery beyond the cliff. Iroha was unable to reply due to the shock and confusion caused by the strange scenery.
There was Edokyuuria arcology, after Edokyuuria arcology for as far as they could see. At the center of these megastructures was a giant colorless crystallized tree.
“Unlike the government in your world, ours were more brutal. After the war of the Fourth Coalition, we became the sole superpower, we annexed Jezabelstien and were corrupted by its technologies and power.” The Mimesis began to explain as she showed holographic imagery of events to Iroha.
“The war had led to far too many casualties. Adding onto the fear of the Rapture pandemic was pushing the emergency regent to her limit. The young princess gave the PGRI a second chance to clean their Miraculum mess. Even with the False Grail at their disposal, no solution was found, not one without sacrifices.”
“Her Highness, Eudokia? Isn’t she studying in Minervaindexca?”
“Minervaindexca? What’s that? Anyhow, with the proper funding, the director of PGRI, Simon Mendelson wanted to use this opportunity to bring back her daughter, Mashiro Fuyuiki, who died in the Rapture pandemic during the war.”
“I see… things are certainly different here.”
“With the development of Miraculum technology, they were able to abandon their body and live inside the crystal, forever experiencing the happiest moments of their lives. This was convenient for harvesting energy for Oracle Core. So they’ve developed a network of Oracle Reactor.”
“So that’s what we saw back there with the spinal cords in capsules.”
“Naturally such insult to human life was met with opposition. Princess Eudokia was assassinated by foreign forces. It resulted in a great war and the formation of the Synchronized Intellect. Since they no longer care about the real world, they’ve exhausted just about everything to fuel their war machine. The longer the war went on, the further they lost themselves in their little crystal salvation. They lost the humanity in them.” The Mimesis explained and pointed at the Harvester unit roaming under the hill.
“They began to recycle human oppositions and grew them into new Aragami types.” Then it turned its attention back to the mass amount of megastructures in the distance.
“And were programmed to create the definition of a perfect society, thus every conquered city had been transformed into structures like this meaninglessly. And it will continue for eternity.”
Iroha was speechless after listening to the Mimesis’s explanation of its hopeless world.
“Are there any humans left?” Iroha asked.
“Even Nephilim-type Aragami like us are almost extinct… But, I don’t know, there could be humans left in some corner of this world.” The Mimesis replied sorrowfully as it looked up at the unusually large planetary ring in the sky. “Kessler syndrome, kept us trapped here... for the greater good.” The Mimesis said, then it turned around and began walking downhill.
“What do you plan to do now?” Iroha asked worriedly.
“I don’t know, maybe a journey. To find purpose…find humans, if they’re not extinct.” It replied carefreely as it was putting on the flag of the Unified Pupatorian Synchronized Intellect as a coat. Iroha stopped her. “What do you want me to do with this?” Iroha asked about the False Grail.
“If one wasn’t enough to perform a miracle in ours… Having more than one might be able to prevent having the same twisted tragic fate as ours in yours.” The Mimesis replied as it snapped its fingers.
Upon the snap of its fingers, the grail started to transform into digital data and entered Iroha. A strange encrypted mathematical formula was embedded deep into the shell of her computing unit. “It’s more convenient this way.” the Mimesis said with a warm smile.
“Wait!” Iroha called to halt the Mimesis from leaving as she took out the bright green flag of the United Kingdom States.
“This is?”
“Take it with you, for your journey,” Iroha said quietly, slightly embarrassed about showing gratitude as she offered her other self the flag.
“That’s… unfair… but…Thank you! With this, I won’t be lonely anymore.” The Mimesis thanked Iroha and hugged her. Knowing there’s a better world out across dimensions where her friends could be brought back from cloud backups.
“To submerge into the sea of imaginary numbers, you simply hug this drone.” The Mimesis explained as she gave Iroha an Aleph One replica that was in good condition.
“Hug? Just like that???”
“Yeah hug tight. Once you’re submerged. Use your head to remember your world. You’ll eventually get washed up there. Or you might end up in timelines you don’t know.”
“That sounds very unscientific,” Iroha complained quietly.
“Which part of the Oracle Core is scientific anyway?”
“Remember to run. Without the grail, the Edokyuuria replica in Aurea, which is a foreign object, will start to dematerialize and collapse.” The Mimesis warned Iroha.
Iroha switched on the drone, it began to create a bubble that encompassed her. “Will we see each other again?” Iroha asked as she waved at the other her.
“Maybe… but I certainly hope that day may never come.” The Mimesis said waved goodbye with a gentle smile.
With a flash of light and unusual gravitation pull and recoil, Iroha and the drone vanished.
“And there she goes…” The ‘Other’ Iroha murmured with a bittersweet smile. She takes off the Synchronized Intellec flag and puts on the one Iroha gave her. She began walking away and started her journey.
“We’re in this together, right? Ashily, Ui, Irena?” She talked to the flag quietly.
-
Epilogue
On September 29th, 2021, all that was left of the Harvester strain of the Unknowns were the damages they’ve done. The colossal megastructure known as the Hive collapsed and vanished overnight. With military casualties of 41,053, and 53,000+ including Nephilims, the volunteer fleet was victorious but this was just the beginning of a large-scale counteroffensive to the other Unknown strains. Having two fronts to fight against the East Morava strains, they were slowly pushed back by the combined cooperation of former ROSE members and certain members of the Royal interdependent Allied States. The war had crippled the United Kingdom States’s status as the sole superpower with new powers rises after the Fourth Coalition.
By 2023 February 1st. The four-year war against the Unknowns has finally come to an end. With apocalyptic casualties of over 10 million and counting. The Federal Republic of Luthorios and the Serbatijan Socialist Republic were eventually reestablished as nation-states with the help of the United Kingdom States and Anteria.
-
Public Health Security HQ, Edokyuuria; 0.0_2.1;19:00;17/09/2023
In the chaotic recreation room, three Type-Bs were doing their usual lazing around.
“Hey, Ashily have you seen this anime?” Ui asked as she handed Ashily the packing. “Eh? Alcoholic Lulu? It’s pretty good. The protag is my spirit animal.” Ashily replied as she rolled around the carpet.
“Come to think of it, why did Iroha take vacation leave?” Ui asked Irena who was studying at the far end of the room. “Iroha? Huhhh she said she had some business to attend to in
Minervaindexca… but she wouldn’t tell me what.” Irena replied.
“Something to do with Luthorios? She always avoids any topic about the place.” Ashily commented.
“I guess what happened in Luthorios changed her. Since she’s the only one with the memory of the operation within our platoon.” Ui said as she stuffed her face into the beanbag.
-
In a dark council hall, somewhere deep inside the planet.
“Where is the representative of the Ayakashi Confederation?”
“Where is Tamamo Fushimi?”
“While the problem had been solved eventually. She indirectly caused this.”
“She should still be held responsible.”
The council hall began chattering chaotically demanding the presence of a being named ‘Tamamo Fushimi’
Then the door to the hall was slammed open by a slender figure in a hooded robe with a broken halo on her head. The crowd stopped chattering and started whispering.
“Hey isn’t that… a Wlefvelia?”
“How many centuries has it been since they showed up to work?”
“Do they even work at all?”
The slender figure walked to her seat in the council and slammed on the table to gather the attention of the entire hall.
“I Dri of Parascosmilium will be representing the Confederation in the General Assembly during Miss Fushimi’s absence.” She declared.
-
Somewhere in the underground complex of Minervaindexca, Kaguya Fushimi and her two masked guards were carefully passing through the facility as if something was chasing them.
Two of her guardsmen had a weapon resembling a musket, taped full of tailsmen.
Unexpectly a burst of flame was shot from behind, and one of her masked guards barely managed to dodge it.
The two guards immediately turned their attention to their backs and aimed at the shadowy figures. “Your Holiness, please go and leave the assassins to us!” One of them said as they pulled the trigger. A magic circle appeared for a split second before a burst of light was shot at their enemy. However, the bullets were stopped when they got close to the assassins.
“If it’s come to this…” Kaguya muttered frustratedly as she pulled out a talisman from her pocket. Just as she was about to chant, a tap on her shoulder from behind interrupted her.
“Go ahead, Pina.” A familiar voice said quietly.
A Nephilim type unknown to Kaguya appeared with earplugs on as she aimed with her SSS standard assault rifle at the assassins. “Wait! Don’t! These are from the-” Kaguya tried to stop her but it was too late, the mysterious Nephilim opened fire. Black crystal bullets were fired and pierced through the shields and the bodies of the assassins, showing the face of shock and confusion before they died.
“What have you done, Eudokia!?” Kaguya removed the arm from her shoulder and shouted furiously. “This isn’t something you want to get caught up in!”
Despite Kaguya’s angry response, Eudokia and her Nephilim guard Pina were not startled at all.
“In Minervaindexca, none other than the Student Council Sanctum rules supreme, Tamamo.” Eudokia said as she grabbed Kaguya by the collar. Tamamo’s guard then aimed their muskets at Eudokia, but Kaguya signaled them to lower their weapons.
“Not even gods.” She whispered as she took out an object from her bag. A golden cup containing black mud, the False Grail.
“Now let us finalize our plan on saving the world from your horrible mess 2000 years ago, shall we? Tamamo Fushimi?”
To be Continued in UKMC III/Minervaindexca Main Story
Suffering two years of writer’s block. This is the third rewrite of this story. Hope you enjoy it and see you in the next one.
Punch It, Punk!
In the heart of ESSLIB PLC, amidst the sprawling corporate headquarters and bustling stock exchanges, there was a man named Richard Alden. He was the owner of AstraCorp, given over to him when his father passed away. It was a powerful company known for its ruthless pursuit of profit. However, Richard harboured a secret desire - to transform his company into a force for good.
It all began one fateful day when he visited a run-down orphanage in the heart of Endirinn. The sight of the underprivileged children, their eyes filled with hopelessness, moved him to tears. He decided it was time for AstraCorp to give back to the community.
Richard launched an ambitious philanthropic initiative called "Punch It, Punk!" It aimed to provide education, healthcare, and a better future for the city's most vulnerable residents. The name was unconventional, chosen to grab attention and defy corporate norms.
AstraCorp poured millions into building schools, clinics, and community centres. They sponsored scholarships, hired top-notch teachers, and provided free healthcare to thousands. The city praised Richard for his generosity, and he revelled in the newfound admiration.
Richard felt a sense of purpose he had never experienced before. Seeing the smiles on the children's faces and knowing that he was making a difference filled him with a profound sense of satisfaction. He believed he was on the right path, and his heart swelled with hope.
But as the company funnelled resources into philanthropy, shareholders grew restless, and board members questioned Richard's priorities. They perceived his altruistic endeavours as costing the company dearly, and stock prices plummeted.
Richard's initial enthusiasm began to wane as he faced mounting pressure from his shareholders and board members. He felt torn between his desire to help those in need and the responsibility he had to his company and its stakeholders. The stress weighed heavily on him.
Desperate to maintain his vision, Richard used his personal fortune to prop up AstraCorp's philanthropic efforts. He believed that the sacrifices were worth it, that he could revolutionize corporate responsibility. However, his determination put him on a collision course with his own company.
Richard's determination bordered on obsession. He couldn't bear the thought of abandoning the very people he had set out to help. He felt a growing sense of isolation as he clashed with those around him who prioritized profits over people. His sleepless nights and constant worry took a toll on his health.
As losses mounted, AstraCorp faced a hostile takeover bid from a rival corporation. Shareholders, concerned about their plummeting investments, voted overwhelmingly in favour of the acquisition. Richard fought fiercely to retain control, but he was outmanoeuvred.
Richard's world crumbled around him. The loss of his company, the very embodiment of his life's work, left him devastated. He felt betrayed by the shareholders and board members he had once considered allies. The sense of failure weighed on him like a boulder, and he struggled to find meaning in his life.
In the end, he lost not only the company he had built but also his personal fortune. AstraCorp, now under new management, swiftly dismantled the "Punch It, Punk!" initiative. The schools and clinics were closed, scholarships revoked, and the community centres left in disrepair.
Richard's spirit was broken. He watched helplessly as the legacy of his philanthropic dreams crumbled before his eyes. The sense of powerlessness and regret gnawed at him, and he sank into a deep depression.
Richard, once hailed as a philanthropic hero, was left with nothing. He had tried to punch corporate greed in the face but had been knocked out by the very system he sought to change.
As he stood atop the Lumina Sky Bridge, he couldn't help but hear the distant echoes of the children he had failed. The tragic tale served as a stark reminder that in the ruthless world of corporate power, noble intentions have no place. Richard, once a visionary with hope in his heart, had become a broken man, haunted by the dreams that had slipped through his fingers. He shed a tear as his foot stepped from the bridge, towards the inky black below.
[PRIVATE RP]
Tetsone City 14:25
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A reporter readies her crew to start their reporting for the day, it was a bright sunny afternoon. The First Election of the Second Republic of Altikar was in full swing. Vladimir Nikolaev, the Chancellor candidate from the Communist Party of Altikar was about to begin his speech.
"Here he comes, quick start the broadcast," says the reporter to her cameraman
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Here we are, ladies and gentlemen! It is a bright sunny afternoon here at Tetsone Square! After two brilliant speeches done by the Profitist and Last Hope parties, Today is the day we get to see Vladimir Nikolaev, Chairman of the CPA speak.
Nikolaev starts speaking,
"Good Morn-
before he could even finish the salutations, two 50-caliber bullets hit his head , both suspiciously coming from opposite directions, the moment they hit, they shatter into hundreds of pieces, sent both outside and inside the body. Nikolaev's head bursts and the crowd is sent into confusion and panic..
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Public RP
Gertbland Gazette #52 | Emergency Meeting Regarding Potentially Melted Town
The Pelvant council was hurriedly gathered yesterday night after its chairman, Samuline Goden, received one of the most imperative weather reports in history. During a late-night broadcast, the Pelvant NewsToday Now! channel reported that Salavé village had a high of above 55,000 degrees Celsius. Panicked viewers from around the country tried to contact citizens of Salavé; but unfortunately, no residents of the small, sleepy town returned their calls. Authorities were not allowed to enter, citing how the community may be considered a graveyard by the next day, and that it would not be respectful to disturb the probably-dead. In honor of those who may have been obliterated by the sheer power of the sun, Our Lady of Pelvant cathedral will be holding a special morning congregation in honor of those who may or may not have been lost. Now, as the morning passes, there is still no word from Salavé and people are fearing the worst. However, the original weatherman who reported the temperature comforts the nation in its time of need:
“What are you on about? There is no way in the world that a place can reach 55,000 degrees. That’s just a fact. Are you guys really joking? It was just a glitch on the screen! I just went along with it as a joke! You guys at the gazette should get your act together.”
NewsToday Now! Corp has yet to respond to the weatherman’s comforting words, but a recent tweeter post mourning the potential death of the three thousand inhabitants of the hamlet is still posted for others on the interweb to interact with and pay their respects.
In other news, Eloise DeChamp, a Con legislative candidate, has released her campaign advertisement for her district in Seltia. Like all campaign ads it is really boring, but Mrs. DeChamp added something special. The fifty second commercial included the champion goose from the 2022 Seltian Goose Competition: Marge “Margy” DeChamp. The cameo quickly became all the rage on Gertblander tweeter. Pollsters and analysts have already considered Eloise DeChamp as a likely winner in her district.
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