Right Arm of the Saint (16 page)

That day, after school. Asagi Aiba was arriving at her part-time job, still in her school uniform.

Twelve levels under the Keystone Gate. The Security Section of the Gigafloat Management Public Corporation.

As what one might call the nucleus of Itogami Island, security was extremely strict in this area, but Asagi easily passed through each gate with one swipe of the System Administrator ID Card prepared just for her.

Though normally, such a card was not issued to anyone short of the mayor, the blunt truth was that if Asagi was serious, she could easily disable security of this magnitude. Knowing this full well, the public corporation’s director had given her the card as a special case. Such special privilege was recognition of Asagi’s superior genius as a programmer.

“Hiya, m’lady. You seem displeased. Your fine beauty will go to waste.”

As Asagi sat down and logged in at her terminal, her assistant AI spoke to her in an overly familiar manner.

The artificial intelligence Asagi had dubbed
Mogwai
was the avatar of five supercomputers holding all of Itogami Island’s city functions within their grasp. Though its operational capacity was no doubt on par with the world’s most powerful computers, it was said to be difficult to handle because of its…quirks. But for some mysterious reason, Asagi rather liked it.

“Oh, shut up. Cut the boring flattery and the helpful spirit act, ’kay?”

“Heh-heh. Concerns about love, I presume? It seems that genius programmers’ affairs of the heart are different from those of mere mortals.”

“Oh, stuff it or I’ll upload a virus.”

Asagi began her work while shooting the breeze with the AI.

The job she’d accepted for today was cleaning up after the explosion incident in the warehouse district the night before. Hundreds of detailed subjects, such as managing the maintenance of destroyed pieces of the electrical grid and water and sewer systems, rearranging the service schedules of transport facilities, calculating restoration estimates, and so on, all required the writing of new, custom programs.

It was a job that would take a group of dozens of excellent programmers a full half year, but Asagi and Mogwai teamed up would need about three days.

With Asagi’s skill, she could have chosen any number of higher-profile jobs, but Asagi rather liked having a part-time job where she could use one of the world’s top supercomputers as her personal chew toy.

Her lone regret was that taking this job meant she had no free time to help Kojou with his homework. She thought, feeling a bit wistful, it was a bit of a shame to have ripped up and tossed away that World History report…

But that was Kojou’s fault any way you sliced it. Plus the idiot had skipped school so early in the term and never even made it back.

She didn’t even need to confirm it. That transfer student Himeragi had been with him, after all.

What surprised Asagi had been how much it burned her inside.

A disagreeable thing was a disagreeable thing, but she didn’t think that Kojou, of all people, had the resourcefulness to skip a class to go out on a date with a younger girl. There had to be some circumstances involved.

What put Asagi in a bad mood was that Kojou hadn’t told her those circumstances, instead trying to cover things up with a clumsy lie. She vaguely realized Kojou was just trying to be considerate of her feelings, but she
really
didn’t like
that
.

There was one other thing she didn’t like: the girl, Yukina Himeragi.

Asagi had no evidence to back her intuition, but Kojou probably had a weakness for her type.

She behaved with a resoluteness that didn’t feel feminine in the slightest and spoke very frankly. No doubt the athletic aura she gave off appealed to Kojou, who’d played basketball day and night when he was in middle high.

On top of that, Yukina looked beautiful to Asagi even in spite of their being the same gender. Though Kojou didn’t appear to pay attention to the opposite sex at all, even he might fall for an opponent of that level.

“Not that I think I’m giving up anything in style points…”

Lost in her work, she didn’t even seem to realize she’d spoken out loud. The AI’s sharp ears picked up on it.

“Well, in this world there are rascals who go for all
kinds
of things.”

“Don’t answer when I’m talking to myself.”

“I’m just having a conversation with my partner.”

“None of your business. And when did I turn into your partner, anyway?”

“Isn’t the reason it’s not going smoothly because you’re not honest with yourself?”

“Y-you don’t have to tell me something obvious like that. But…!”

Asagi’s hands unwittingly stopped tapping the keyboard as she raised her eyebrows in annoyance.

It was the moment right after when a dull vibration and impact shook the room Asagi was in.

Asagi let out a brief yelp. Itogami Island, floating on top of the Pacific Ocean, didn’t have any earthquakes. It was the first impact Asagi had felt since she’d immigrated to the island.

“Mogwai, what was that just now?”

“…Well, this is unexpected. Intruders.”

The AI spoke with something like admiration. Asagi furrowed her eyebrows in surprise.

“Intruders?”

“Yes. They are in combat with this building’s security forces. The vibration from just now was from a support pillar being cleanly broken during combat.”

“Broken… You’re kidding, right?” Asagi murmured in a low voice as her face changed color.

This was no ordinary building. This was the Gigafloat’s underground
infrastructure section. Its main support pillars, designed to hold up tens of thousands of tons, were not so easily destroyed, even with explosives.

“It’s not just the support pillar. There’s quite a bit of damage to the upper floors as well. I believe it is still safe here for now, but it might not be possible to escape. The elevator shaft was also destroyed.”

“You mean I’m shut in here?”

“The emergency stairs are still intact, but I do not recommend using them right now. Not unless you want to meet the intruders in person. The security forces have already been routed.”

“Routed?” Asagi asked back, dumbfounded. Even in peacetime, the Keystone Gate was garrisoned with nearly a hundred and fifty security personnel. And they had been beaten?

“Who are these intruders? A terrorist group? Or are we under attack by a Dominion army?”

“Err, no. Neither…”

The AI replied to Asagi, who’d expected some kind of demonic military incursion, with an oddly human-sounding tone.

A fierce explosion shook the room once more.

“…There are only two intruders. One a mere human; the other, a homunculus.”

Keystone Gate was the name of the giant composite structure located at the center of Itogami Island.

At twelve stories, its aboveground section was the tallest building on the island. You could look up from pretty much anywhere on the island and see its majestic reverse-pyramid shape.

Within the facility were government administration offices, including city hall, and numerous hotels and commercial facilities built one after another, functioning as the island’s nucleus in both name and fact.

On the other hand, the giant construct also fulfilled one other, crucially important role, performed by the forty levels under the surface of the water as well as the Gigafloat Management Facility.

This structure, just under two kilometers in diameter, bound together the four Gigafloats that together composed Itogami Island.

Keystone Gate was designed to absorb the effects of ocean currents, wind, waves, and so forth, such as bending and vibrations between the Gigafloats. Without this, the four districts of Itogami Island would suddenly collide, or perhaps break apart, drifting atop the Pacific Ocean. It was a critical facility, truly worthy of the name
keystone
.

Furthermore, it was heavily defended.

Itogami City was under the jurisdiction of the Island Guard, four hundred and forty men strong, divided into three battalions. One of those battalions was assigned to guarding Keystone Gate. This included a platoon of sixty Counter-Demon Agents, numbers equal to those of all CDAs under the jurisdiction of a typical midsized prefectural police headquarters.

Such a large number of personnel had been assigned to protecting Keystone Gate in anticipation of assaults by large-scale terrorist organizations.

In simulations, they could hold out for several days, even against a company of beast men troops from the Dominion.

That was why, that day, people were in utter shock.

That a mere two intruders had shattered the security forces and penetrated the gate—

They had already broken through the tenth underwater level’s airtight bulkhead, heading for the gate’s central section, having not made a single demand.

“—
Complete
. The airtight bulkhead’s seal has been destroyed.”

The homunculus girl, shrouded in Beast Vassal armor, made an austere report.

Right now the girl appeared to be wearing a twelve-foot-tall golem, glittering in rainbow colors, as armor. A single brush of its fingertips instantly destroyed the barrier protecting the seventh level’s airlock.

This was the work of the DOE sealed within Astarte’s body.

Completely merged with the man-made Beast Vassal “Rhododactylos,” she was able to neutralize various mystical forces and slice through barriers.

It was this ability in particular that Eustach the Armed Apostle had long sought. For it was this,
the power to destroy barriers
, that was indispensable for the achievement of his fondest wish.

“Go, Astarte. That which we seek lies beyond.”

“Accept.”

Quietly murmuring, Astarte climbed over the destroyed bulkhead.

Ahead was the central section, under the jurisdiction of the Gigafloat Management Corporation, extending down to the twenty-fifth floor underwater.

If damage was inflicted on this block, it was possible that severe damage would be caused to the inhabitants of Itogami Island.

For hospitalized patients, a power outage could be fatal; food could no longer be preserved in the fierce heat of Itogami Island. Here on the Pacific Ocean, three hundred kilometers from the mainland, it was not possible to evacuate some five hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants in a short time frame.

That was the very reason why it had been a target of terrorism time and time again and why security had been beefed up to cope with it.

It had been the Island Guard’s finest that awaited Eustach and Astarte’s arrival into the central section. There were two CDA squads and one heavy, mechanized platoon.

“Hmm… An adequate response for an emergency situation. They are well trained.”

As they spotted Eusatch and Astarte on the path below, they engaged with one great volley.

These were Blessed Bullets for use against demons. Even Eustach’s armor-enhanced clothing would not emerge unscathed from a straight-up hit. Eustach slipped behind a wall to avoid direct hits but appraised with a very calm voice, “Still, it is all for naught. Exterminate them, Astarte.”

“—Accept. Execute ‘Rhododactylos.’”

The humanoid Beast Vassal, glimmering in rainbow colors, assailed the mechanized troops as they continued to fire.

The giant moved with unimaginable agility. The Beast Vassal’s overwhelming power mowed them down.

The barriers that protected the mechanized forces shattered like thin glass; now defenseless, they were dispatched with the greatest of ease.

Having determined that normal Blessed Bullets were having no effect, the CDA fired ballista at Astarte. These were small-scale siege weapons that launched javelins, but when their heads were charged with ritual
power, they became powerful weapons against demonkind—enough that their use had been treaty-restricted, being able to inflict lethal wounds to beast men and vampires in a single blow. The javelins, glimmering with a dark gray light, assaulted the humanoid Beast Vassal with a speed rivaling that of a bullet.

And then the armor deflected them as easily as raindrops.

The unbelievable display made the CDAs stop dumbfounded in their tracks.

Only Eustach made a quiet smile.

A Beast Vassal, being a mass of magical power, could not be damaged save by even greater magical power.

However, Rhododactylos was now neutralizing the magic power of all attacks, and reflecting them back.

Now no one could stop the Vassal Beast—or its lord, Astarte. Not even the Beast Vassal of a Primogenitor.

The CDA continued to resist, but with their most powerful weapons rendered powerless, their chances of victory were nil.

With overwhelming physical might, Astarte’s Beast Vassal annihilated them.

This was no longer combat. It was a one-sided slaughter.

“Hmm, a wise decision.”

No doubt they’d noticed that Eustach was the one giving orders to Astarte the homunculus. The several surviving CDAs attacked Eustach directly.

“However, I cannot be defeated by such dull skills. Compared to that Sword Shaman girl, ’tis mere child’s play.”

A grand smile came over Eustach’s face as he struck back.

His physical strength amplified by his augmented robe, swinging his metal bardiche, swept the security force’s Counter-Demon Agents away. He had been an exorcist sufficient to be granted the title of Armed Apostle by Lotharingia. His might far surpassed that of the average for National Counter-Demon Agent.

“—Perhaps things have been put in order?”

Eustach spoke coldly as he looked around at the completely silent security forces.

The vestiges of scattered bullets and of the Beast Vassal’s destruction
had changed the floor from a battlefield into a ghastly ruin. All members of the elite force, over sixty strong, had fallen, heavily wounded. No one moved aside from the two intruders.