The door Reiko kicked flew into the room at a terrifying speed.
Just as it seemed the momentum would surely demolish everything in its path, the door suddenly vanished into thin air. Then, the interior of the room came into full view.
"What is that room?"
In the command room on Hourai Island, Jin stared in amazement at the screen projecting what Reiko saw.
Windows. Windows. Windows. The place was covered in them.
Small windows. Round windows. Square windows. Large windows. Long, narrow windows. Oval windows.
Bright windows. Dark windows. Glowing windows. Transparent windows.
Red windows. Blue windows. Yellow windows. Windows showing scenery. Windows with text scrolling across them.
The walls and ceiling were packed with various windows.
"...Could they be monitors?"
When Jin looked at the windows as if they were LCD panels, the room resembled a chamber filled with high-tech electronic equipment. However, compared to any technology he was familiar with, the sight was far too alien.
"Is this technology even older than the Predecessor's?" Jin muttered to himself. Laojun offered no response.
＊ ＊ ＊
"So you have made it this far, have you? Servants of the one called the Magi Craft Meister."
Standing in the center of the bizarre room was a figure.
It was about 120 centimeters tall—smaller than Reiko. It had no hair, possessing a smooth, bald head, but its eyes were unnaturally large, filled with a rolling, murky light. Its build was thin. Its gender was indistinguishable, but it did not appear to be a woman. Its skin tone was sallow and sickly, more the color of graveyard dirt than ochre.
In its hand, it gripped a device that appeared to be a magic tool.
"Are you... one of the Origin Clan?" Alectas was the first to speak.
"No. I am Nega-doll 001."
"Nega-doll 001?"
"That is correct. It seems I underestimated you."
The entity calling itself Nega-doll 001 twisted its face into a hateful grimace.
"You are the one who was manipulating the demon race with the Needles, aren't you?" Reiko stepped forward to confront it.
"And you... are an automaton. A pathetic doll that blindly obeys its creator without question."
"What did you say?" Reiko's voice was laced with sharp anger.
"Ho, so you are angry. It seems you possess emotions. I shall answer your previous question. Yes, it was I."
"For what purpose!" Alectas shouted, his own voice thick with rage.
"For what purpose, you ask? Revenge."
"Revenge? Against the entire demon race?" Anne took a step forward. Nega-doll 001 shifted back a step.
"No. Against humans."
"Then why use the Needles on the demon race...!"
"I simply paid back what was done to me."
"What?"
"...It is time. I have finally recharged the mana I consumed to vanish that unexpected door."
With those words, Nega-doll 001 operated the magic tool in its hand. In an instant, its form vanished.
"Teleportation Magic?"
"But how? We were using the Magi-Jammer."
Reiko and Anne looked at each other in confusion. Both had been projecting a Magi-Jammer ahead of them. Alectas was unaffected, but Nega-doll 001 should have been unable to use any magic at all, yet it had managed to disappear.
"It might be that magic tool," Anne concluded. "An ether converter would cease to function, but an internal ether tank or mana tank remains unaffected by the jammer."
Meanwhile, Reiko scanned the room, transmitting every detail back to Hourai Island.
"In the end, it escaped," Alectas said, his shoulders slumping.
"It is quite unfortunate," Anne added.
However, Reiko turned to Alectas. "The magical energy used to operate the Needles is still being emitted from this room."
"What? Is that true?"
"Yes. Probably from this magi-device." Reiko pointed to a machine situated behind where Nega-doll 001 had stood. It, too, was alien, covered in a cluster of small windows.
"I do not understand how to operate this..."
It didn't look like something Anne, Reiko, or certainly Alectas could interface with. The same was true for Jin back on Hourai Island. They might manage if they spent weeks investigating it, but it was impossible to figure out in a few minutes.
"Regardless, we must shut it down."
Whether it possessed an internal power source or not, the machine had not stopped despite the Magi-Jammer.
"Let's stop it rather than destroy it," Jin requested from Hourai Island. He wanted the chance to study it later if possible.
Reiko shifted Touka into vibration sword mode and carefully cut into the magi-device's outer casing. With Reiko's strength and Touka's hyper-vibrating edge, the metal was sliced through like soft butter. Alectas stared at the display of power, speechless.
In about a minute, the internal components were exposed.
"...Are these the magical conductivity lines?"
Four thick lines made of mithril passed through the core. Severing these would likely halt the operation.
"Cutting them now." Without hesitation, Reiko severed the four lines one by one.
"...It seems to have stopped."
The magical energy Reiko and the others had been tracking—the power controlling the Needles—was no longer detectable.
"So, at the very least, they should have regained their free will now?"
"Yes, presumably. However, there is a possibility this only affected the Gospel clan."
Even if the All-Creation clan or other groups were being manipulated similarly, it was hard to believe a single magi-device here controlled every clan across the continent.
"For now, shall we stop all the magi-devices in this room?"
"No, elder sister," Anne cautioned. "If we do that to unknown magi-devices, we might cause an irreversible situation."
It was a cliché, but there might be self-destruct mechanisms. Furthermore, even if it didn't explode, it could cut the lights or stop the air conditioning. It wouldn't matter to the automata, but it could be fatal for Alectas.
"That is true." Reiko conceded and sheathed Touka. "Now then, what is our next move?"
"One option is to return to the Gospel clan's location."
"We will do that eventually," Reiko said. They would have to escort Alectas back at some point anyway. "But let us investigate here a little more."
Since they had infiltrated this far, Reiko wanted to gather as much data as possible—a wish shared by Jin and Laojun.
"Oh? Is there another room further in?"
Anne, who had been investigating the back of the chamber, found something resembling a door. Reiko and Alectas hurried over.
"It looks like a door, doesn't it?"
On the wall, a thin crack ran in a rectangular shape, two meters high and one meter wide. However, they didn't know how to open it. There was no handle or knob, and no control panel nearby.
"I can only assume it functions purely through magic..."
In Earth terms, it would be an automatic door. But even automatic doors on Earth usually had a manual override for emergencies.
"This door, too..."
Reiko and Anne searched the area, but no emergency release could be found.
"...Is it really a door?"
The moment Alectas stepped forward and stroked the surface of the wall, the door slid open without a sound.