Could it be—Amarao thought—Could it be that this high school girl has been feeding it?
It hadn't been programmed to be looked after—yet peculiarly, it had allowed itself to be. Then again, considering it was an MM robot, was it really so strange that it had unexpected functions?
This, however, was not the time to wonder about how it had happened. Already, the car waiting at the opposite end of the intersection had been bitten and crushed. The terminal core somehow could function by eating cars, it seemed.
Then, the terminal core caught sight of Kitsurubami's car—and the four-legged thing started coming straight for them!
Amarao and Kitsurubami both immediately took out their guns and started firing, their bodies hanging out the car windows. But all those bullets rebounded off the terminal core's body. MM products were well known for their high-quality, durable materials.
Realizing they couldn't stop its progress, the duo leapt out the car windows. They had only just gotten out when the car was devoured by the terminal core, which cut into the hood and gobbled up the engine, seemingly its favorite part.
Sensing the danger, Amarao and Kitsurubami already had put some distance between them and the terminal core when they were startled by what they saw standing on the sidewalk next to it.
Kitsurubami muttered, "Lord Canti."
She was right. Standing there, for some reason, was Canti.
Amarao wondered what on Earth it was doing there. No, that much was obvious: It had followed the terminal core's signal. At least, that was the rational interpretation.
He confirmed that Canti's body was still blue. Of course. Only when it was receiving Atomsk's personal signal did it change to red.
"Gi gi gi gi gi!"
Having chewed up the car, the terminal core started reacting violently. It seemed that discovering Canti was a cause of excitement for it.
"Giii!"
With a speed of movement that they had not yet witnessed from the terminal core, it suddenly bore down on Canti. And as the terminal core unexpectedly changed direction, Mamimi was being dragged violently behind, gasping for breath.
Amarao and Kitsurubami stood frozen in front of the spectacle.
"What are you doing?" Amarao muttered.
The terminal core that had captured Canti didn't eat the robot; instead, it started doing something completely different.
It wasn't just a transformation; it was more a transmutation.
The terminal core had, in an instant, shifted shape, becoming a series of blocks, each less than one millimeter. From the four legs came silhouettes like unstable flames.
And then, Canti was caught up in it, too, synchronizing in response to that transformation.
Amarao started to think that maybe the robot called Canti had in fact been created as part of the terminal core.
After Canti synchronized with the transformation, it returned back to normal, creaking as if it were in pain. Rather than becoming part of the terminal core, it was struggling to keep itself going as a separate entity.
"No…" Mamimi, who also had been caught up in the transformation, was struggling for breath. Getting caught up in the middle of a violently moving series of machines was not the safest thing she could've done.
Amarao ran toward those squirming machines and reached out his hand in an attempt to save Mamimi.
And when Kitsurubami witnessed that act of bravery, she reassessed her opinion of her boss a little.
However, Amarao got too close to the terminal core, and part of the suit he was wearing was caught up in the transformation, too.
"Damn!"
"Commander!"
The terminal core had now taken the shape of a tire—a large circle with a radius of a few meters. Canti was caught up in this, as was Mamimi, and now part of Amarao's suit.
It was then that Kitsurubami understood the reason that the terminal core had become a giant wheel. The circle distorted a little like an ellipse; then, using the elastic reaction from returning to its round shape, the core was able to jump—or maybe it was less that it had "jumped" than it had "flown." It rose up and up until it was a tiny speck in the sky.
It was then that a siren started to blare from the top of the hill; it was MM Factory's warning signal, but it was a much louder and more urgent siren than before. It could be heard not just in that area, but it every part of Mabase.
And it sounded just like an air raid siren.
Haruko, who had been sleeping on the bench, opened her eyes.
With her phenomenal eyesight, she spotted the figure of a machine soaring through the mist in the sky. And she could clearly make out that Canti was trapped inside that ring.
As she quickly jumped to her feet, she violently kicked Naota, who'd been sleeping next to her.
"This is no time to be sleeping!"
"What…? What is it?"
Haruko gleefully told the still half-asleep Naota, "It's the CLIMAX."
Chapter 4
The terminal core was flying straight toward the towering hand.
In the body that had transformed into the shape of a tire, Canti, Mamimi, and Amarao all were caught up—Canti and Mamimi completely solidified in the machine, and Amarao caught only by part of his suit. For that reason, Amarao was clinging on to part of the machine for dear life. If he were to be thrown off, then that would be it for him.
The terminal core was flying several meters above the ground. Amarao could see the whole of mist-covered Mabase in its eye, which was terrifying. If something hit him off, then that would be the end of it for him. Along with the wind rushing past his ears, Amarao could hear the sound of Mamimi screaming.
"Waaaaaaaaaah!" Although hers was definitely a scream of terror, it sounded not unlike the voice of a child on a roller coaster.
The terminal core then started to descend. Its destination was the towering hand—the giant palm reaching up into its field of vision. If they hit it at this velocity, it would be over for them all. Amarao resigned himself to his fate.
"Takkun, stop it!" Having used up the last of her breath to scream those words, Mamimi lost consciousness.
Whether or not those words had gotten through to it, the terminal core's flying speed started to ease; it violently landed on the towering hand as though a train linking up, hitting with a great gon sound.
Barely escaping with his life, Amarao quickly removed his trapped suit, thereby freeing himself from the terminal core.
Now, the terminal core that had landed in the center of the giant hand—which was spread out to about the size of a baseball field—connected part of its own body with the hand.
And the MM factory next to the towering hand, which was emitting more smoke than it ever had, started to shake.
It's going to move soon!
From the top of the towering hand, Amarao was looking down at the factory, stunned. The giant hand and the giant iron made him feel small. His phone rang, interrupting that thought; when he picked it up, he heard Kitsurubami's trembling voice.
"The pl-plant is moving."
Not first checking that her superior was unharmed was cold. But that aside, her observation was an important one: As it connected with the terminal core, the towering hand also was beginning to slowly move the giant iron. In other words, it was beginning what would amount to a terrifying clean up—one that would wipe out all life on this planet.
But Amarao saw something that indicated the crisis hadn't yet begun, that the world had not yet been abandoned by the gods of the galaxy. "No, it isn't moving yet," Amarao told his cold subordinate. "The terminal core hasn't been able to connect properly."