Story Reader / Main Story / 26 Cradle Parade / Story
When Lamia is done washing herself clean of the blood and rejoins the human, "Noan" has succeeded in luring Cthylla away.
"Noan" barely manages to dodge Cthylla's vital hits even as he gives up attacking her altogether and concentrates fully on dodging her attacks.
...
In the short few minutes, Lamia was gone to clean herself up, the human had become all but soaked in blood.
...Are you okay?
More so than it is meant to check on the human's physical condition, the question is meant to find out how they're feeling on the inside.
The human looks up at her with a weary smile.
Corruption?
When she looks up at Cthylla, it hits her just how much damage it can cause when humans and Hetero-Creatures come in contact.
Amputation is the least that this humanity's hero will face even on the off chance that they can make it back home safely.
...Should I help deal with Cthylla?
Where?
Got it.
Lamia holds out her hand trying to help the human get back on their feet—and sees that their feet have blistered to the point of looking like pulps of blood and flesh.
...Do you... want me to... carry you?
She looks away, feeling awkward. Lamia has been avoiding eye contact with everyone she's seen the entire way.
The mermaid gathers her long hair to the front and bends down and offers her back to the human. She offers to catch and hold the human with one hand, while still holding the egg with the other.
Holding on to Lamia's hand, you stand up somewhat precariously.
As the two of you come into contact, her cool body provides a moment of relief to the burns you've sustained... as her back becomes glaringly stained with your blood.
You want to apologize to her—yet as she travels down the bumpy path, there is nothing you can do but lean your head powerlessly against her shoulder, every bump seemingly delivering a major blow to your head.
...Hey... uhm... it's a little...
...My neck... is getting tickled...
Halfway through your apology, blood drips out of both your mouth and nose like pearls coming off a broken string, soaking Lamia's cheeks and soft, long hair.
...
You blurt out an apology—knowing full well that it is the Punishing and the Mind Beacon corruption that are to blame.
...Stop apologizing...
When Lamia is back to the transmitter, she sees that it's already been fixed and places the two ID cards—bearing "Kana Kurono" and "XX003", respectively—on the sensor.
As the green light comes to life, so, too, does the console's interface.
...Guess this will do.
Lamia sets you down, careful so as to not cause further damage to your body.
You try your best to keep your fingers from shaking and suppress the excruciating pain coming from your fingers as you punch the passcode into the transmitter.
With it, a connection icon pops up on the screen.
After 16 long seconds, a Construct soldier you've never seen before shows up on the screen.
Who's this? Gee, the video quality is terrible.
Then, it hits you that doing this is a waste of time since you can't prove your identity to the soldier over the call, and even if you can, it's not in his place to send your way all the Elite Squads there are.
Ascendants would have taken advantage of this and done something wicked if a recorded message were all it had to take to mobilize Task Force.
And it makes more sense to just ask him to connect you without telling him who you are anyway when you can't tell for certain whether this person is one of the defectors.
Uh? Who in the world is this... You know what. Let me just put you through here.
Three seconds later, you see Celica on the screen.
...?
She seems a little confused.
...
She puts on a meaningful smile, nodding to show she's listening while reaching for the console to her left.
...Something's off. The way she seems and the way she's reacting. Something is just not right.
And it doesn't help that you can barely think now when your brain is barely working because your Mind Beacon has been contaminated.
What in the world is going on...
You don't really know if your brain is still working or if you've gone mad.
I'm listening.
Like a sculpted mask, Celica's face flickers in and out of view.
What's going on?
Watch out!
Lamia grabs you by your jacket and jerks you from the screen.
A split second later, the console blows up with a loud bang, torn apart amidst countless crimson sparks.
Severely injured and no longer the agile person you've always been, you fail to dodge the explosion completely and end up with your thigh penetrated by a shard.
Amplified by the drug, the pain courses through you like electricity, draining the last bit of strength from your legs and uprooting your nerves.
As you think out loud, you see the world around you slowly blacking out as the long overdue dizziness washes over you.
...!
You have to try to fight off the lightheadedness to keep the world around you from being swallowed by darkness.
When your vision finally returns, you find yourself sitting in a corner in the control room soaked in cold sweat, your legs spasming in pain. You know you can't get back on your feet again.
...Uhm...
Hesitant and seemingly trying to find the right words to say, she squats a few steps away from you and pokes the air at your eye level.
With it, the red mist disperses and ripples away.
...
Are you... feeling better?
Being an Ascendant and not needing to breathe or worry about the Punishing, Lamia is completely oblivious to what you're going through.
She looks down at you as you struggle to breathe... the same way she probably would a puppy she sees in a downpour.
I have no idea what just happened back there...
Lamia looks at the shattered transmitter with sincere confusion.
Did I screw up somewhere?
The last thing you want to do at this point, however, is trying to figure out if she screwed up somewhere.
The naive hope you had been holding on to swelled into a big bubble and blew up right in front of you, leaving nothing but a pitch-black abyss.
With its mouth wide open, fate has waited for creatures to come at it, promising no way out unless they fight to the death.
...Hey! Hey!
After God only knows how long, you awake in pain.
You try to work your fingers but can now barely feel anything in your limbs. This, you figure, is about as far as your body has come.
Possibly because of the influence of the drug, your mind, as opposed to your gradually deteriorating mobility, sharpens.
Working your eyes, you find yourself lying in the hallway of a deserted aquarium.
Seeing the syringes and empty bags of medical fluids lying around you, you figure you've been given painkillers and polypill electrolyte solutions... and that "Noan" was probably here.
You're awake...
Holding the egg, the mermaid leans against the railing.
Yes, I didn't know what to do when you passed out cold, so I thought I'd bring you here first.
"Noan" did some emergency first aid on you with the kit he brought here.
I'm no doctor! And I was trying to keep the Punishing in check. Pretty sure your corruption would have gotten worse with the Transcendant around you.
And your skin is so bad that it took the dude seven or eight tries to finally get the needle into you!
She nods her head without saying anything, her tail swinging harder than it did moments ago—and finally coming to a stop after she whacks the railing.
...
He left right after he was done helping you... Seems like he hates Ascendants' guts.
Awkward silence ensues.
So, what do we do next?
I don't think Lithos can hold out for much too long with Cthylla since he isn't completely stable...
And this place is going to start falling apart again if he has another breakdown.
And water pressure is going to be an issue even for me when that happens... Guess we're 5,000 meters under sea level? Best I can handle is 4,000.
And all these Hetero-Creatures are going to go on a killing spree if we let them out of here, and we've got to keep them under control with the egg...
She stops talking, but she needn't say more for you to catch her drift—Lamia wouldn't be able to fight and fend for herself underwater without you around, no when her M.I.N.D. is in chaos.
It hits you now that there is just no way for the three of you to cheat death.
...
Lamia decides to look away from the elephant in the room for the time being.
I noticed just now when we got here... that this whole place itself is an actual structure.
I guess it's either a deserted submarine or some sea base built on top of this place?
Yes, it's completely different from that place out there that kept falling apart.
We were in the body of a Hetero-Creature most of the time back there, and Lithos probably meant for the things that were falling down to keep humans safe, right?
Humans would have died from corruption without those things and an Ascendant to keep the Punishing in check.
And it was only when we got here that I saw that the Hetero-Creature was connected to some underwater ruins.
This place only looks like a super complicated maze because Lithos built most of the doors to these tunnels, and there are all these Red Tide undercurrents underneath.
Except for this door. You have to come all the way here to see this channel that he missed.
I took a look at where this place is connected to the place we were at just now... and it seems like these ruins are all going to sink and get crushed in water if the Hetero-Creature has a complete breakdown and the connection is severed.
And given the way things are... we have another 20-30 hours at most.
When Lamia is done talking, you find yourself deep in thought in prolonged silence.
Is there anything I am missing?
Is it because of Cthylla... that you've been avoiding it at all costs?
I know for a fact that she's not going to let us off the hook now... so continuing with the operation would still be highly risky.
I mean we can always try to figure out a workaround as long as I've still got the egg and you around, but you...
...
(Is this person seriously still worried about other people... when they're on the verge of death...?)
The human lets out a deep sigh—which causes your body to curl up, which in turn stretches your skin and causes still more pain.
Even in such excruciating pain, the human raises another question.
...No, not when I'm here.
...Why do we need to beat Cthylla, though?
She keeps those Hetero-Creatures in check for Vonnegut, which is good for everyone.
...
We can't let Cthylla get out of here alive, and that goes for the eggs, too.
Except you don't have a clue how to get out of here—not when getting out of here comes at the cost of a life.
But for them to help you, they would have had to be notified ahead of time, and it'd take time for them to send people down even if Cthylla catches their attention while getting out of the sea.
And Vonnegut will likely have been long gone with Cthylla by then... meaning you've done everything for absolutely nothing.
Lamia would never agree to it.
Even on the off chance that you manage to pull that off, there is no way Lamia would wait for Task Force to get here to kill her.
If anything, she'd leave this place hating mankind even more and come back for retaliation somewhere down the road.
But there are no other options... and you're now mentally beating yourself up for blowing up every single one of your replicated consciousnesses there was.
You know full well that those replicated consciousnesses are no different from you...
...And that it's not your place to decide their fate simply because they're replicated beings...
On top of your own possible death, you now have to think about the damage Cthylla might wreak once she gets out of here—and all the lives that would be lost because of that.
There is only one way out of this.
There is a chance that you might be able to keep Cthylla stalled if you do it.
Lamia might not be completely happy with this plan, but you just need to keep Cthylla and Vonnegut stalled until help from Babylonia gets here...
...And let the other Gray Ravens—oblivious to your plan—kill you.
Quietly, you lay your nearly-gone life on the chess board, prepared for the worst as you take the next move.
...An opportunity to fulfill my wish.
...I want to go somewhere far and see what it's like.
I want to catch up to those people, see for myself the starry sky they've given up their lives trying to pursue, and discover the truth the universe holds.
...
I don't... but what does it matter? People die and so do civilizations. I've seen it over and over.
Lives hardly mean anything when the universe reverts to when it began... and a future without humans is nothing when you compare the two.
She looks ahead, her gaze merging into the void of the starry sea. Still enthralled by those illusions, her soul wanders afar.
...But that's exactly what I am.
What do I need to say to sound like myself, then?
...
I do... but there will come a day when humans and civilizations on Earth all die. That much I know to be true.
I know I'm sounding contradicting here, but...
But there is nothing I can...
No... well, that's part of it, but it's mostly because of what you said...
But these are two different things. I'll always have the choice of saving you as long as I have the egg, but that choice will be taken away from me if I don't have the egg.
The human, left with no choice, prostrates before her silently.
I wanted to make this chance count and live life as my true self.
You see, I don't have to be Lillian or any of those people I've worked with, and I can just be out there without having to worry about anything...
...!
These words hit home.
It is true that the "egg" helped her become "Lamia"—while Cinderelik was stripped of her name and freedom and turned into a tool.
Is it because she's useful? Or is it because people don't get to choose if they become one with Hetero-Creatures?
But what choice did Lamia have herself...?
...No... I never meant to... to...
Lamia looks at you with utter sadness, because you—one of the handful of people in her life who trusts what she has to say—look exhausted and disappointed.
She doesn't want to treat Cinderelik as a tool to get herself what she wants anymore.
...Cinderelik... I understand what it's like getting left behind... and stranded.
...That's why I have these wishes...
Lamia looks up and, like a prisoner yearning for the world out there, gazes toward the illusory starry sky deep in her memories.
The bright light she saw in the simulations still beckoned to her, casting her into a sea of confusion.
Yet she understands—that it's not a desire for power that drives her toward the starry sky in pursuit of the truth of the universe, but a longing to see for herself what the place is like that they all were willing to die for.
She strives to secure her own footing, yet cannot ignore the fact that the egg in her arms is none other than Cinderelik.
Her memories are still deeply rooted in many vibrant souls. She has never been one who "doesn't care about people."
But once "a specific someone" becomes "all of humanity" or "the concept known as humanity," then it becomes irrelevant to her and stops mattering as much.
...She remains, always, an outcast in pursuit of those she's familiar with.
Seeing her hesitate, you open your mouth, knowing exactly what's going through her mind.
...Are you sure?
...
...
...The Punishing...
...I...
I know, but I just...
Right when Lamia opens her mouth to speak, you hear Cthylla's cry coming from the distance.
She's here!
I-I'm going to bait her away from here. Will be back after that...!
