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Chapter 51: Clones?
🕑 Added 2024-07-20 08:00:29 +0000 UTCI am determined to eradicate this usurpation. The curse seed has progressed far but thin. The Anathema I saw were no higher than level 30, but there were many of them, and they encompassed several kilometers.
"Plan?"
"Many of them didn't come toward us. Why?"
"Their coordination radius is about 500 meters. Only Anathema within this radius will come to you. Warning, this is not a sure thing. But from basic anathema behavior, this is the most likely conclusion."
"We should clear this area one section at a time then."
"That would take a long time. I don't think I will have the stamina to do it," I muttered. I am already on the second cycle now. While I can prolong these summons just by sacrificing 50 mana, the exhaustion will eventually catch up after four or five hours of continuous fighting.
"So? Retreat?"
"No. Let's do it," I said.
"Roger, nyaa!" one of my clones spoke like Felicia. We all looked at her. She was now holding the darkeater warscythe.
"What? Nyaa." She looked at me. We looked at her incredulously.
"Felicia?" My eyes turned to my cat. Something tells me that's me. But I don't speak in 'nyaa-speak.' That would be too embarrassing. I remember talking like that in a film production five years ago when I was in elementary school. My friends were teasing me when I carried the habit to school.
"That's not me. Nyaa." Felicia stood beside me, defending herself.
"I think your speaking habit rubbed off on me, Felicia." I sighed. I thought it was Felicia controlling her.
"Sorry. I will speak normally now." The Warscythe clone nodded, embarrassed.
"Um... It's fine, really…" I sighed. Deep down, I wanted to talk like that, too. I am a magical girl now, and talking cutely like that would be normal. In the past, some students described me as cold. I wonder if I talked like her, I would have been able to gather friends more easily.
"Mission, start," the sniper clone muttered. We all moved to the flat roof. With her scope and tracker skill, we identified every enemy that started to gather. Then we moved out, dropping from the second floor and moving to the center of the city.
With my enchantment on, I slashed at the looming black shadow that resembled a child. As I cleaved the monster, frost began to gather on the wound. The black shadow, unable to reform, began to dissipate, and a kill chime resounded. Felicia operated the scanner and reported that there were five places where the curse seed of this region might exist.
"Since this usurpation has been going on for a while, there might be nests or worse, some anathema constructs here. You have to destroy them."
"Hm?" I scanned the surroundings. When she said anathema constructs, does she mean that thing we found with Serene in the cave? How could we locate them in this vast city?
"Watch out! That tower plant-looking thing is targeting us!" one of my inelegant clones described the towering plant shrouded in dark miasma. The plant resembled a Nepenthes plant with black pods all around it. The pods undulated and spewed dark masses of shadow in our direction, like artillery fire.
"Incoming, disperse!" the shotgun clone warned. The dark mass plopped to the ground and scattered its black ichor around.
"AHH!!" My clone with the darkeater naginata melted upon contact with the black ichor. Her screams sent shudders through me as my skin itched. Within seconds, she was reduced to goo and disappeared into motes of light.
"Sniper!" I called to my sniper clone.
"On it!" She shot the plant, and it worked. The explosive fragments made Swiss cheese out of its pods. After two more shots, the plant died. The higher-level phantasmic Anathema here had more substance than the low-level ones, so the bullets could explode inside them.
"I will switch to the darkeater naginata," said the clone with the harpoon gun, swapping weapons. But she dropped the naginata soon after and screamed in pain. "AH!"
"Use fire to extinguish the corrosive miasma first," Felicia advised. The warscythe clone then spewed her fire on the naginata.
"Ouch! Ouch!" My clone grabbed the purified naginata, but it was still hot. After fumbling with the weapon for a bit, she was back in action. With nothing else but ghouls left, we decimated the rest of the horde. After clearing the second section of the city, I found something. It wasn't quite like a curse seed, but it was similar. It wasn't emitting miasma or black ichor; instead, it absorbed it.
"Should I destroy it?" I tilted my head.
"Yes. Once you destroy it, I might be able to analyze it." After I destroyed it, Felicia surmised it was a newborn curse seed.
[Defeated: Phantasmic Ghoul lvl 8 x 70]
[Reward: 600 Points]
[Defeated: Phantasmic Nepenthes Level 35]
[Reward: 40 Points]
[Defeated: Phantasmic Dog Level 25 x 45]
[Reward: 600 Points]
[Defeated: Degraded Curse Seed]
[Reward: 70 Points]
[Remaining Points: 6510 (5200 + 600 + 600 + 40 + 70)]
[You have leveled up to level 28]
"This is a lesser curse seed made by Anathema on Earth to enlarge the usurpation zone. Usurpation zones are usually only a kilometer wide. But with these lesser curse seeds, the usurpation zone could be as wide as a 10 km radius." Felica said. Then, before me, a window depicting a 3d of the cursed seed I had just destroyed appeared. The curse seed was linked to the central curse seed; by feeding miasma from it, the usurpation could grow.
"That's bigger than New Mesa."
"Yes, it is. I suppose all five areas we suspected of having curse seeds from the drone would have these as well."
"Let's destroy them." I shuddered. The air seemed to scream at me, the despair reverberated through the air. I could taste it. I could feel the darkness enveloping me.
"The curse seed knows there is a Magical Girl in the area. It will try to fortify its defense."
"Everyone, let's go."
"To the third section."
As Felicia said, the third section of the city had more Anathema. Several Phantasmic Chariots flew and crashed into my clones. I was forced to activate my signature to defeat them. Using 12 clones, we brought down five of these chariots and ten of the Phantasmic Nepenthes.
Nepenthes were fairly easy to defeat using ranged attacks, but their bulky bodies and multiple weak points required several shots to take them down. Their acid shots were hard to dodge. Even when you avoided the main droplets, the splash could still damage my shield aura by half. Since my real ranged weapons were only my Icerail and Sniper, it took some time to defeat them.
The chariots were fast, but they had physical bodies, unlike the rest of these Anathema. So, we could use our usual strategy of pinning them with a harpoon gun and then smiting them with a warscythe or naginata. They were fast and hit hard. Even with my upgraded spirit, each hit still took a fair chunk of my shield aura.
"If you have water magic, you could neutralize the acid to minimize the damage. It will be tough on your weapon, though. If your darkeater naginata gets hit once more, it could get chipped and you will have to replace it."
"I made a thousand points per section of this usurpation. One or two naginatas is a negligible cost."
"Good thinking. Your life comes first," Felicia nodded. "In that case, may I suggest that you retreat? You have used your signature and are on your fourth mana cycle. By the way, this section yielded 1200 points, bringing your points up to 7710. There weren't any curse seeds here."
[Remaining Points: 7710 (6510 + 1200)]
"… Alright," I nodded. "Where are we going to retreat to?"
"Outside the city."
"Wouldn't Anathema chase us?"
"They will, but they won't outspeed our jeep. If they insist, then we still have some leeway to exterminate the stalkers."
"You make it seem like Anathema has a mind. They can plan."
"Even low-level Anathema have some rudimentary prospective cognition ability in large numbers. Some of them are more advanced. They can plan and adapt their behavior. However, they do not have sentience. Their mission is to eradicate all life. There is no negotiation on that part."
"I see. Well, here is the curse seed. Let's destroy it. We can continue to eradicate them tomorrow." I muttered. Fatigue began to creep in. I had no idea I had been fighting for close to four hours. The Extend spell proved to be a boon and a curse for attrition warfare.
"Hm… let's leave one clone for diversion. They can also leave mana eyes now. How about asking them to go through the communication tower there? It would be beneficial to get a bird's-eye view of this city."
I looked at my clones, and they looked back at me. Anxiety shot up between us. When I was in New Mesa, I ordered these clones to die like normal. But now that they showed some sort of personality, could I ask them the same? They were all me, so it should be okay to order them.
"I will go there. I can always use Horcrux to switch with the surviving clones later."
"NO! I will go there!"
"No!"
They all refused and looked at Felicia, asking her to decide. Felicia tilted her head. "You can't all go. I recommend the clones go. But you going yourself is also fine. As long as you activate it yourself, the repercussions from Horcrux will be minimal."
"Then…"
"Lottery!"
“Rock-paper-scissors!”
I started to chirp with my clones. We gathered and played rock-paper-scissors. I happened to be the winner. Despite my winning, my clones looked at me with suspicion.
"You're cheating, aren't you?"
"I have higher stats. It's called a skill," I answered. They pouted. "I will go. Prepare the jeep. Once you go outside and I have planted the mana eye, I will use Horcrux."
"Okay…" The clones sighed as they brought out the jeep. They drove out while I ran toward an abandoned telecommunications tower. I looked at the tower with amazement. The design was ridiculous. It took over 300 square meters of space and was about 200 meters tall. These towers were usually placed on top of buildings in Eden, with a height of no more than 20 meters. It would be ridiculous to waste such space for a single telecommunication device.
Anathema began to reswarm the place. I ran and jumped toward the tower. Fear started to grip me as I reached the middle of the tower.
"Felicia, is it safe?"
"Yes. This tower is still functional if you give it electricity. The steel integrity is still over 90%."
"You lied," I accused her.
"I did not."
"The metal is shaky, and it bends easily."
"That's simply because of your stats. Normal humans wouldn't be able to bend it with their hands. Don't grip it too strongly, you might actually damage the tower."
"Okay." I tried to release the tension from my fingers. My stats allowed me to climb this tower with one hand on my icerail naginata, shooting at the monsters while holding onto the metal bar supporting the tower with the other hand.
"Chariot sighted," Felicia said. "This is high enough. Let's put an eye here and then teleport. Fighting a phantasmic chariot in this place would be unfavorable."
"Okay." I nodded. It was just a bit more to the top, but I followed Felicia's suggestion and stopped now. When I turned my head, I glimpsed something impossible—a human figure in the distance. It had color, unlike the black smog of phantasmic ghouls.
"Fel? There seems to be people there."
"Impossible. There can't be humans living in the darklands," Felicia said. "Maybe you are hallucinating."
"... Okay. Horcrux." I nodded and teleported. My vision blurred, and pain assaulted me before light on the horizon rushed at me, returning me to the jeep ridden by my clones.
"Welcome back!" My clones greeted me. They grew more and more expressive.
The Anathema didn't follow us. Our jeep rode unobstructed to the outside of the city. There, I summoned my house and put my jeep back into the storage. As soon as I closed the doors, I turned on the lamp. From the outside, this house should look like a harmless black box.
"Wow, we got our lost points back!" One of my clones muttered. I knew she had access to the gate, but did she also have access to how many points I had? Does that mean my clones also have access to my status screen? Can they also manipulate them?
"How about we buy a carpet? The stainless steel floor is a bit cold," one of my clones complained.
"The bed is not big enough for all of us."
"Should we just unsummon ourselves? I am kinda scared."
"I am kinda tired. The main Yuri also needs rest. We have been doing this for almost six hours." One of my clones referred to me as the main Yuri. I ignored her, but she turned off the light herself, and as darkness enveloped us, I slept.
