"Ugh... Where am I?"
The old man woke up and looked around, directing his question to Maquina.
"This is the headquarters of Unifilar... or so it seems," Maquina replied.
The old man shook his head slowly.
"Unifilar... Yes, I remember now. I am the Chairman of Unifilar, Jules Rolant. I feel as though I have been lost in a long dream."
Watching through Maquina, Jin suspected that the shock of being struck and hovering on the brink of death had broken the man's brainwashing.
"Originally, Unifilar was intended to be an ideological group. We held the Dinar Kingdom as our ideal, lamented how nations were constantly at each other's throats, and sought to unify them through our philosophy."
Jules Rolant murmured the words as if trying to convince himself.
"How did it come to this...?"
Jules clutched his head. Seeing this, Maquina posed a question.
"Do you remember what you have been doing?"
Jules nodded.
"Yes. But it feels as if a complete stranger was the one acting. Why did I give those orders...?"
He clutched his head again.
Aboard Pegasus 1, Jin watched the scene through a magi-screen. He decided to give instructions through Maquina to keep things moving.
"Land 71, stay with Jules for a while. Don't take your eyes off the unconscious Donald, either... The rest of you, stay alert. The Golden Destruction Princess that Anne mentioned must still be hiding nearby."
Jules reacted immediately to the title.
"Ah, do you mean Elena? Yes... Elena. It was her. Everything was her direction. I remember now. Her orders were absolute. She was our Queen..."
"So the Golden Destruction Princess... Elena was the true mastermind after all," Anne said.
Jules looked at Anne and gasped in surprise.
"Are you an automata? A blue-haired model... I thought all the blue-haired automata recovered from the ruins had been destroyed or discarded on Elena's orders. To think one still remained..."
"Do you know where Elena went?" Anne asked.
Jules pointed toward the Chairman’s seat—specifically, behind it.
"If she isn't here, there is a hidden passage behind that seat. She likely escaped through there."
He seemed to be completely free of the brainwashing now.
"All right. Reiko, Anne, Land 70—let's go."
Leaving Land 71 with Jules, the group searched for the hidden passage.
They found it almost immediately. Tapping on the floor revealed a hollow section. Land 70 found a small depression, hooked his fingers into it, and lifted. The hatch opened easily.
Beyond lay a steep set of stairs leading down into pitch-black darkness.
"Stairs leading down, huh? Land 70, you take the lead. Reiko, Anne, then Maquina follow in that order."
Jin gave the orders, and the group began their descent. The stairs headed straight down as far as they could see.
Though the passage had appeared pitch black from the brightly lit room, there were actually faint lights positioned along the way, allowing the group to see ahead without difficulty.
"I wasn't aware of this hidden passage. It must have been constructed recently. There is no telling what lies ahead, so please be careful," Anne warned.
Just as she spoke, the stairs suddenly vanished.
More accurately, the steps tilted forward, transforming the staircase into a steep slide. Naturally, the group began to plummet.
However, unlike humans, none of them panicked. Land 70, at the head of the line, braced both hands against the walls and came to a stand still.
The three following him collided with his back and stopped as well.
"A trap. It would have been effective against humans, at least."
"Yeah. Land, can you continue down like that, moderating our speed as we go?"
Land 70 nodded at Maquina's question.
"Yes, Master Maquina. That will be easy."
With Land acting as the brake, the group resumed their descent. Land adjusted the pressure of his hands, regulating their speed as they slid downward.
"This is a long way down. We've already descended further than the height of the fortress above ground. We must be deep into the earth now."
The slope continued at a steady forty-five-degree angle.
Just as it felt they had reached a significant depth, the end finally came into view.
"Land, stop for a second."
When they were about ten meters from the bottom, Jin ordered Land 70 to halt.
"There's likely another trap. Move carefully."
"Understood, Master Maquina."
Land 70 slowed their pace to about a third of what it had been. Reiko, Anne, and Maquina followed, eyes scanning their surroundings for danger.
They eventually reached the end of the slope. A single door stood before them.
Reiko, possessing the keenest hearing, listened intently but detected nothing. She switched her vision to infrared, but there were no heat sources near the door.
"Hmm... if I were the one setting this up, what would I do?" Jin wondered aloud from inside Pegasus 1.
Meanwhile, Land 70 reached out and touched the door.
In that instant, a realization struck Jin.
"Wait! Everyone, look up!"
Before Jin could finish the warning through Maquina, a roar echoed from the top of the long slope.
"Rocks!" Reiko shouted, hearing the sound first.
A massive rockslide was cascading down the incline toward them. The door had been a decoy; touching it triggered the release of the boulders.
"She intends to bury us alive!"
The slope was over fifty meters long, and enough rock to fill the entire tunnel was hurtling toward them.
"Barrier!"
"Barrier!"
Reiko activated her pendant while Anne used her ring.
The magic barriers contained within the items successfully held back the rushing tide of stone.
However, they were now pinned. Unlike humans, they didn't need to worry about oxygen, but they couldn't stay trapped there forever.
"Well, if I want to clear these rocks quickly... there's only one way."
Jin came to a conclusion.
"Reiko, listen carefully. I'm going to walk you through this. First, remove the emergency mana tank from inside Maquina."
"Yes."
The mana tank was a magi-device designed to allow operation even in areas where the ether concentration was low. Only Reiko and Maquina were equipped with them.
Reiko pulled the mana tank from Maquina's frame. It was an all-attribute magi-crystal that shimmered with a prismatic light even in the dark.
Since the current ether levels were sufficient, Maquina's ether converter would keep the body active without the tank.
"Good. Now, embed that crystal into the fallen rocks. This part will be tricky."
"Understood."
The barriers protected them from being crushed, but they also prevented the group from touching the rocks directly.
They had to briefly deactivate the barriers to wedge the magi-crystal into the debris.
This required them to physically hold back the weight of the mountain while they worked. Fortunately, Reiko and Land 70 possessed more than enough strength to brace against the rockslide.
Their efforts were aided by the fact that the tunnel was narrow; once the rocks jammed together, friction helped hold them in place.
Anne watched over them, ready to redeploy her barrier at a moment's notice.
Bracing the stones with her left hand, Reiko used her right to shove the magi-crystal into a gap between the boulders. Once it was set, the two of them reactivated their barriers.
"Good, that's done. Now for the finish. Reiko, when I give the signal, cast Mana Explosion on the crystal you just planted."
"Yes."
Just to be safe, Jin ordered his forces inside the fortress to evacuate. Since resistance had crumbled, they were able to clear the area within minutes. This included Land 71, Jules, and the still-unconscious Donald.
He also made sure the unconscious prisoners were carried out.
"Ready... wait for it... now!"
"Mana Explosion!"
Reiko's most powerful offensive spell erupted—this time at one hundred percent output.
When she had defeated the Hekatonkheir previously, she had only used twenty percent.
The difference lay in the conversion rate of the mana.
At lower rates, the spell merely destabilizes the atomic bonds of matter containing mana. However, at higher conversion rates, the mana itself is converted directly into pure energy.
It becomes a physical explosion in the truest sense—hence the name, Mana Explosion.
The magi-crystal, which served as a mana tank, was essentially a condensed mass of mana.
When it detonated, the side facing Reiko and the others was shielded by an indestructible barrier. The passage was a straight line.
The result was inevitable.
The magi-crystal, possessing over ten times the potential of the core from the Hekatonkheir defeated near Kaina Village, went off with a titanic blast.
The massive volume of rock clogging the long slope was propelled upward like a projectile through a barrel.
The debris turned into a literal cannonball of stone, shooting out of the tunnel.
The force was so great that it shattered the ceiling of the top-floor command room and erupted into the open air.
"Whoa... that had even more kick than I expected."
Watching from Pegasus 1, Jin was impressed to see a section of the rocky plateau burst open, sending debris soaring over fifty meters into the sky.
"Wh-wh-what?! What was that!?"
Elena, the Golden Destruction Princess, had taken refuge in a secret room located behind a hidden door halfway up the slope. She had been congratulating herself on successfully trapping her pursuers.
Then, a tremor that seemed to shake the entire fortress rumbled through the ground.
Looking at a magi-screen that was still operational, she saw a fountain of rock being launched from the plateau that formed the fortress roof.
"What is this?! Don't tell me... is this that monster's doing too!?"
Elena's scream echoed through the hidden chamber.
"Master Maquina, that was a success."
Anne was equally impressed. Reiko, meanwhile, had deactivated her barrier and was listening intently.
"I heard a voice from somewhere in the middle of the slope."
"I see. So there was a hidden room or passage along the way. All right, let's climb back up."
The impact of the explosion had heavily damaged the slope, leaving it jagged and uneven—which, ironically, made it much easier to climb.
The group ascended the incline with ease and finally arrived at the hidden door.