Chapter 178 : Chapter 178

Chapter 178 : Does a Machine Doll Dream of a Knight? (3)

As Panika put the Machine Heart in her mouth and swallowed it, the surrounding Dal flinched simultaneously.

The Lord suddenly shouted.

“Panika! I don’t want to treat you roughly! I really mean that!”

Manuan’s words came to mind.

─If Panika gets her hands on the Machine Heart, she can perfectly control all the Dal and Automata of Grimlok.

He hadn't explained exactly how Panika would get her hands on the Machine Heart, or what specific action was needed, but…….

My intuition whispered. That this was an important turning point.

Giiiiiing!

A sharp metallic sound rang out from the surroundings. It was tinged with killing intent.

Noser and I instinctively took defensive stances. We both recognized that we couldn't move recklessly, as their numbers were overwhelmingly greater.

“Fine. What are you going to do after swallowing the Machine Heart? Are you really going to take revenge on him by controlling us, or is this just blowing off steam?”

“…….”

“Speak! You damn……!”

“Wrong.”

Panika let out a small laugh.

“You’re all wrong. I didn’t come here to fight.”

Not revenge?

The Lord tilted her head to the side. I, too, looked back at Panika. I had no idea what she was trying to say.

“I’m going to end it here. Me, you, all of us.”

For a moment, the area became quiet.

The Lord's face crumpled as she asked.

“……End? What?”

“We are all going to die here.”

Silence fell again, and then-

“Hahahaha!”

“Ah, is this a joke? Right, I’d forgotten for a while. About jokes, I mean.”

Laughter burst out from all sides at once. They intentionally exaggerated it, laughing even louder, but beyond that, the laughter itself was bizarre.

“Funny, Panika. We all die together? Sure, fine. But how? Are you going to break the Machine Heart? The one that went inside your body?”

The Lord crossed her arms. As she confidently raised the corners of her mouth, her eyebrows also twitched devilishly.

“You haven’t forgotten the Absolute Rule, have you, Panika?”

“…….”

“Let's just say we're mutations. But you? Aren't you the Ultimate Dal? The Ultimate Dal created by Manuan breaking the Absolute Rule and committing murder? And a mass murder that kills all of us, at that?”

The Lord grabbed her stomach and cackled. Her laughter was shrill, to the point of being annoying.

“Hilarious! How is that the Ultimate Dal? That’s a contradiction that cannot and must not exist!”

“No. That’s not a contradiction.”

“Hm? What is it then?”

“The fusion of human and machine, the end of that perfect knowledge…… ultimately reaches the result value of yearning for pure human emotion again.”

I unknowingly let out a sharp breath.

Panika calmly continued her declaration with unwavering eyes.

“Thousands, tens of thousands of repeated calculations. The conclusion is always the same. Human emotion, longing.”

The Lord tried to suppress her astonishment and anxiety, but her expression eventually twisted undisguisedly. As if a mask had fallen off and her true nature was revealed, the face that had seemed only childlike instantly looked old.

“I intend to prove that now.”

“Pr-Prove? Wh-What are you going to prove……”

Panika didn't answer. Instead, she slowly looked to the side. In the confusion, the others' gazes also turned.

What everyone’s gaze fell upon was―

‘Grotesque creatures.’

The things I called by that name.

Panika muttered, her gaze fixed on them as if possessed.

“You all, you’ve forgotten for too long. That before you were Dal, you were half human.”

“…….”

“If people do wrong, they must be punished. Am I wrong?”

“Wh-What did we do wrong! What in the world-!”

The Lord strode over, panting. It was in the direction Panika's gaze had landed.

The Lord picked up one of the small Grotesque creatures trapped in a net.

It was a mushroom-shaped creature, with eyeballs and a mouth on its head and torso, respectively.

“You! Don't tell me you feel sorry for these things?!”

The Lord squeezed the mushroom Grotesque creature tightly.

A scream burst from its mouth.

“Kkueek- Sa-Save……”

The Lord said.

“Chimeras-! They are nothing more than byproducts accidentally born during humanity's challenges. In other words, fragments of great knowledge!”

“…….”

“And now they exist to breed for us, to be consumed for us, so why are they objects of pity?”

The Lord’s eyes flashed. My own eyes narrowed before I knew it.

“Chimeras will continue to exist like that. Forever.”

Panika suddenly looked at me.

“Mister.”

I'm not a mister. Dammit.

I answered in spite of myself.

“What.”

“You said it before, right? That you're a knight who helps people.”

Of course, I never said it exactly like that. Still, well, it wasn't wrong. I nodded.

“Right.”

“You definitely said that not all knights are selfish.”

Without realizing it, my head turned toward Noser.

Noser flinched his shoulders, like someone caught in the act.

This time, too, I nodded my head.

“……I did.”

“Then, can you answer for me? Why do you fight for others? Where does that kind of heart come from?”

Normally, I would have immediately retorted that I don't know such a thing, but…….

This thought suddenly occurred to me.

That somehow, that question right now felt like it was posed not by Panika, but by the absolute being who led me to this life.

Like, say, a midterm check-in.

For what do I raise my sword?

It was a question that had lingered within me ever since my regression.

And I had met numerous connections who guided me to find that answer for myself.

From Hermann, who discussed the chivalry of wielding a sword for none other than himself and those beside him, telling all that grandiose flowery language to go to hell…….

To Eugene, who taught me what devotion and honor were, Clyde and Anderson, who knew how to throw everything away for the one person they loved, and Roberto, who was more of a knight than anyone but was the only one who didn't know it.

It wasn't just those who wielded the sword.

Henry, too, was a guy who knew how to fight to the death for his connections, and Matteo, the head of the Firefield Village, was a man who fought bare-bodied, representing everyone.

'And Karim, too.'

There must be many more people I haven't mentioned.

What was the resonance they gave me?

“What reason is there? It’s just the natural thing to want to do.”

The gazes gather on me. The cold gazes of machines.

I spoke to them.

“If you're human.”

A smile spread across Panika’s lips. She looked relieved.

She said.

“No being is born into this world to suffer.”

There was no dissonance in Panika's face now. It was true even knowing she was a machine.

“Dal and Automata don't need to exist in this world.”

Just as Panika said, the Ultimate Dal was, in the end, a regression to being human.

“So I'm just setting things back to how they were.”

The Lord’s face instantly turned deathly pale. He convulsed and shouted.

“S-Seize that bitch right now! You must not kill her! Drag her here alive and take out the Machine Heart!”

Kiiing!

I drew the Heavenly Demon.

A faint light brushed over the spell formation insignia Manuan had engraved on the sword's surface.

“Bihen! No Aura!”

“I know.”

I stood back-to-back with Noser. Various possibilities came to mind.

It seemed best for me to handle it while Noser protected Panika and Bolero—

‘……!’

The sensation flowing through my grip.

This sensation, so familiar I usually felt nothing from it, why was it so horrifying…….

“Panika!”

She was embracing the Heavenly Demon herself.

Deep in her chest.

For an instant, everything seemed to stop.

“Kyaaaaaaak-!”

“No! Make her let go, now!”

“Euaaaaaaaaah!”

The surrounding machine legion rushed toward us all at once.

The surroundings were dark with the shadows they cast.

And amidst it all, Panika-

“Thank you for helping me.”

“Wh-Why……”

“Sacrifice isn't murder, is it.”

She looked peaceful, as if laying down a long-held burden.

“Atonement is my privilege.”

She was smiling.

Like a human.

·

·

·

The last scene I had seen in Manuan’s recollection unfolded before my eyes.

Panika's body, starting from its outline, broke down into small, square pieces.

Those pieces did not scatter but were sucked into the spell formation circuit on the sword's surface.

Immediately after, the surrounding Dal also simultaneously turned into streaks of light and were absorbed into the Heavenly Demon all at once.

Like spirits plunging into the furnace of the Abyss's Altar.

The Automata that had filled the area scattered as fine ash.

It was as if they were each following their masters.

In any case, like that…….

As if everyone shared the same fate, they perished together in one place.

Jiiiing-

Presently, the Heavenly Demon stopped vibrating.

I was covered in a cold sweat. I almost lost it.

“Ha……, Bihen. Are you alright?”

“More or less.”

Noser staggered and sat down.

“What in the world was……”

All around was quiet.

The dissonant voices of the Dal, the unsettling metallic sounds of the Automata, could no longer be heard.

In the emptiness, where not even a trace of debris remained, only the sounds of breathing and heartbeats echoed quietly.

“Hieeee…….”

“We’re, alive- We’re alive-, we’re, alive.”

……Grotesque creatures, no. Now I know their real name.

“Chimera.”

Somehow, the name didn't have a great ring to it and sounded like a Demonic Beast, but it was still better than a Grotesque creature.

“Just what kind of dog-shit things were happening here?”

Noser grumbled. His hand was roughly flipping Bolero's eyelids to check on him.

“Hmm.”

I thought about what I should say in response while looking at the bewildered Chimeras.

Though I didn't know why I could read their flustered feelings in the process.

“……A broken dream.”

“Wh-What? Why would a dream break?”

I ignored him and was about to sit down and catch my breath for a moment-

“Thank you for granting our request.”

It was Toma and Mangul.

A request. Ah, right. They asked me to liberate them.

“You really were the Savior, you.”

Before I knew it, the Chimeras in the area had cautiously gathered this way.

Noser flinched his shoulders. Well, I understood. Given their appearances…….

It would be a lie to say I felt no aversion at all, but it was still better than at first.

'By the way.'

A Savior.

I wondered what they meant all of a sudden-

─The Homunculi who created us said so. That someone would one day appear to save us from the Predators and machine dolls. They said it wasn't baseless nonsense, but an inevitability prophesied by the stars.

A hollow laugh escaped me.

“That wasn't me, it was Panika.”

I had no intention of taking the credit for her. I refused to play the part of a fake Savior.

“No. That was actually something Panika said, not the Homunculi.”

I blinked my eyes.

What was this?

Then these guys knew Panika from the beginning?

Toma flicked his tongue, and Mangul spoke.

“Sorry. We ended up lying to you. But Panika said lying was our privilege. Something the machine dolls don't have.”

Panika’s last words suddenly came to mind. Did she say atonement was her privilege?

'Good grief.'

What kind of privilege was so trivial.

“Panika secretly helped us get outside of Grimlok. Though we couldn't avoid the Dal's surveillance forever.”

Just then, a ladybug Chimera next to Toma and Mangul took one step toward me. Human facial features were jumbled on its back instead of spots.

“Actually, we’re in more danger if we go outside. We can't resist humans, let alone Demonic Beasts. Still, isn't it better to die that way than to quietly become the Dal's food here?”

The Absolute Rule forbidding murder was originally supposed to be engraved on all of Homunculus's creations.

The reason why the rule only worked on the Chimeras, who were outwardly the most incomplete and even hideous…….

I didn't know. Did Manuan really perceive the flaws of the Dal and Automata from the beginning and create them this way?

'And Panika is the daughter who atoned for her father's moral failing.'

One thing was clear: I was in no position to receive thanks from the Chimeras.

Just as I was about to leave before I got any more embarrassed, Mangul asked urgently.

“Please tell us your honorable name.”

I have never hidden my name from anyone, anytime, anywhere.

But this time, I had to set aside my conviction for a moment.

I forced myself to look away and helped Bolero up.

“Panika went into that sword!”

“Did Panika become the sword?”

“Then, the real hero is that sword!”

“We have to call it by a name that combines Panika and the Savior!”

The dwarves, who didn't even reach my knees, shouted in a group. Just then, one of them grabbed my pant leg.

“Savior! If you are leaving, please give us one last chance to mourn Panika!”

“…….”

“That sword of yours, what is its name?”

I couldn't refuse this, at least.

I drew the Heavenly Demon and plunged it into the ground.

“Heavenly Demon.”

As the tip of the Heavenly Demon touched the earth, a clear metallic sound rang out. As if that sound was Panika’s voice…….

The Chimeras on all sides bowed in their own ways, all at once. It was like a great wave washing over.

“Ah, Heavenly Demon-!”

It was a moment so reverent, it was hard to believe it was a scene created by deformities intertwined with scales, fur, and hideous limbs.

Panika's resonance, imbued in the Heavenly Demon, lingered like an afterglow.

“…….”

I quietly paid my respects.

Hoping that Panika would dream a dream from which she would never wake.

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