Chapter Forty-Nine: The Road Ahead Is Long

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When Xiang Shan lifted Yuki into his arms, he discovered that his disciple’s breathing was gradually weakening.

He glanced at the helpless village chief, then at Doctor Schultz, and finally sighed inwardly.

There was no way he could leave his disciple here with any peace of mind.

The child’s mother was already dead, and the only person who had promised to care for him without compensation was gone. This place probably had no institution resembling an orphanage—and even if it did, Xiang Shan might not dare trust it.

Besides, before these townspeople, who trembled day and night beneath the majesty of the Father of Ten Thousand Machines, he had attacked the protector of civilization. Yuki was also closely associated with him. He truly did not dare gamble on how the townspeople would treat the boy.

The man sighed. “All right, brat. You were right, and I was wrong. You really should become a knight-errant.”

Holding Yuki in one arm, he shouldered the welfare officer’s body and walked toward the ground-effect craft the officer had brought. He connected several of the officer’s drive chips to his own prosthetic hand and circulated his internal force.

Unexpectedly…

—Oh. A language I don’t recognize at all…

Xiang Shan nodded. This was probably more in line with his understanding of technology.

In the era familiar to Xiang Shan, industry had lagged several steps behind academia in updating its programming languages. In this age, perhaps that gap had widened infinitely.

Doctor Schultz’s civilian products still used a variant of the C language, which had been around for who knew how many centuries. Martial artists’ drives were written in a newer language that Xiang Shan nevertheless recognized. The drives of these protectors of civilization, however, were written in a language unknown to him.

Of course, the relative “strength” of languages only mattered in direct confrontations between masters of internal force. Against a simple Turing machine based entirely on Boolean operations, a master of internal force could make changes from a deeper level.

It did not take long for him to completely hack into the welfare officer’s chips, connect to the craft, and escalate his privileges.

But several seconds later, he sensed interference from outside.

“An internal-force master is attacking through a satellite… Judging by the latency, he should be on Earth.”

That was Xiang Shan’s thought.

Because cybernetic humans required fewer resources for survival, the transformation of humanity had gone hand in hand with a massive expansion into space. There ought to be people on the Moon by now. Therefore, one could not entirely rule out the possibility that an internal-force master was attacking through the network from the Moon.

Mars and Venus, of course, were too far away. The latency would be too great, which was highly disadvantageous in a contest of internal force.

“If the latency is under one second, then this internal-force master must be under the command of a nearby lord.”

Xiang Shan started the craft and silently calculated something.

Under the horrified gazes of every villager, he activated the ground-effect craft and left the area at low altitude.

Several minutes later, a number of missiles flew over from the direction of the great city.

Then faint flashes shimmered along the horizon.

……………………………………………………………………………

About four hours later, an enormous Austrian black-and-tan hound nudged the head before him with its nose and said with amusement, “Oh. So you were actually decapitated in a single move…”

“It was because… static… Iron Blossom… static… counters military weapons…” the welfare officer shouted angrily. But because his brain had been damaged when Xiang Shan tore off his head, his language functions had also suffered to some degree.

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“Tch. If Iron Blossom could counter every formation on the battlefield, then military weapons would consist of nothing but heavy tanks and giant warships.” Grand Dog sneered. “This is your own problem, my lord.”

The dog’s tone was no more respectful.

Then he turned to the kneeling village chief and Doctor Schultz. “And then? You saw a streak of fire fly across the sky?”

The village chief nodded repeatedly.

The welfare officer cried out, “That… static… knight-errant… must… static static… already be dead… static…”

“With you in this condition, you’d better say less, my lord. The more you say, the more humiliating it becomes.” The Mad Hound, Alster Grand Dog, laughed. “A knight-errant who could decipher the boxing art I transmitted using nothing but a biological brain, without relying on algorithms, must be a great hero of his generation. He could never have been killed so easily by a missile.”

As he spoke, the dog casually kicked the welfare officer’s head into the village chief’s arms.

“Take good care of that head. If any other protector comes later, you’ll be rewarded.”

Grand Dog did not actually care what happened to the welfare officer, but he had to put on an appearance. The welfare officer was an official member of the protectors, enjoying their protection and authorized to exercise executive power under special circumstances. Even with his brain damaged and nine-tenths of his martial ability gone, Officer Welfare could still be sent to some nursing home beyond Earth to enjoy the rest of his life.

Alster Grand Dog was different. He was a martial artist who had abandoned the protection of civilization and pledged himself solely to a personal lord.

Although his lord’s favor had granted Alster Grand Dog considerable authority, his status was still fundamentally different from that of a welfare officer.

“What are you… static static static… going to… static… do…”

“Why, find that boy and kill him, of course.” Alster Grand Dog sneered.

His artificial eyes were no inferior to those of practitioners of the Gunfire Path, and his nasal passages contained the sharpest chemical detection systems available. They could gather information from molecules in the air—in simple terms, giving him a sense of smell far more sensitive than any dog’s.

Since he had anticipated the need to “track” someone, he had deliberately implanted a brand-new sensory reagent kit before leaving. The trace chemical reagents inside it reacted with the chemical molecules collected by his nasal passages. A mechanical lock could monitor those reactions.

Combined with components such as a gas chromatograph, Alster Grand Dog’s nose possessed a sense of smell a hundred times more sensitive than that of an ordinary canine.

He soon found the remains of Glead. The main chip and storage devices had already been removed from the corpse, but it could still receive certain commands. Xiang Shan had used instructions planted in advance to order the body to throw out Iron Blossom after a set interval.

Here, Alster collected the scent of a living being.

—I absolutely will not allow anyone to decipher my martial arts in that way…

With that thought, Alster Grand Dog sprinted in the direction recorded for the missile launch.

……………………………………………………………………………

Yuki dreamed, dimly, of his mother.

It must have been a very long time ago. Back then, his mother was not yet a truck. Yuki should not have been able to remember that period, but his chip had preserved it for him. He had been a small child then, not even as tall as his mother’s knees. There seemed to have been an older brother in the family as well…

Yuki no longer remembered what his relationship with his brother had been like. According to the chip’s records, he had cried often in those days. And Yulia would still hold him, humming softly in some unknown tune and telling him that all dangers were illusions, that humanity protected by the Father of Ten Thousand Machines could not be attacked by fantasies.

Perhaps Yulia herself did not understand what that meant. It seemed to be some sort of spell that gave human beings a sense of security. Her own mother had done the same for her. It was as though human beings had been doing this, generation after generation, since ancient times.

In the dream, it seemed that only beneath his mother’s knees was the world bright, and only there could he feel at peace.

But…

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Those hands… those legs… that warm, comforting scent…

“Mom… Mom…” Yuki murmured.

“Well, disciple, you’re awake.”

A voice.

Yuki struggled to move his eyes and saw a silver man. It took him several seconds to remember who he was.

“Master…”

“All right, save your strength. You’re badly injured. Don’t talk so much.”

Only then did Yuki notice an electrical cable emerging from beneath Xiang Shan’s neck and running into his chest.

“Your lungs are damaged.” Xiang Shan shook his head. “The compatible organ for your internal battery has been damaged as well, so you’ll have to rely on the battery on my side to keep you powered. Endure it until the new battery arrives.”

Tears rolled down Yuki’s cheeks.

“Hey, you little brat. I told you that you’re weak right now. Don’t waste your water reserves… Hey.”

Xiang Shan scratched his head. Only now did he remember that he had apparently never studied child psychology. He had learned a little educational psychology, but that was meant for teaching students over twenty. He genuinely had no idea how to comfort a child in a situation like this.

“Fine. If crying will make you feel better, then go ahead and cry.”

Xiang Shan sighed. “There’s still some water and inorganic salts in a few tears.”

When he left the village, he had also brought copper sugar, drinking water, inorganic salts, and amino acids. Unfortunately, those supplies, along with the spare battery, had all been placed on the automatic walking robot called Donkey.

Before the battle began, Xiang Shan had ordered Donkey to proceed along a predetermined route. After bringing Yuki aboard the ground-effect craft, he flew it rapidly for several minutes, then immediately jumped off.

After Xiang Shan departed, the craft continued flying automatically for less than a minute before a missile blew it apart in midair.

Xiang Shan then performed basic treatment on Yuki here and waited for the drone and Donkey to arrive.

But Yuki’s condition was truly serious. His heart was still functioning well enough to be powered by Xiang Shan’s battery, but his lungs were in terrible shape. Only one lung lobe remained operational. The blood loss was another major problem.

Xiang Shan himself had no lungs. Even his remaining biological brain had been heavily modified. It could use electrical energy to replace part of the energy produced by ATP hydrolysis, leaving it with very little need to breathe. The biological filter membrane built into his skull was sufficient.

Of the sugars, proteins, and other nutrients he consumed, only part was used for energy; the remainder repaired damage to his brain.

That was one of the advantages of complete modification.

He had no circulatory system, barely a few drops of blood, and no way to keep Yuki alive by “connecting their circulatory systems.” Even if he were willing to transfer his own components, his completely modified body lacked the organs required by a partially modified cyborg.

Because of the oxygen deprivation, Yuki’s thoughts gradually became unsustainable. After crying for a while, he fell asleep once more.

Humans transformed into metal-based beings were more resistant to damage from oxygen deprivation than Homo sapiens. That, at least, was something to be grateful for.

Xiang Shan, meanwhile, began examining the things he had removed from the welfare officer.

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