Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint

EP.296 A world made of gears – 3

A huge steel arm moving forward. An overwhelming sense of weight is felt. The frightened body trembles uncontrollably.

‘Either let go of the saw blade or catch it while holding it. It’s Lee Ji-sun. How will I respond?’

If you let go of the saw blade, it will slam me in the head, if you hold on, the steel arm will crush me. There is no right answer to the choice made by the opponent.

I chose another option.

I put my finger on the inside of the saw blade. Sharp on the outside, but dull on the inside. Carefully grabbing hold of it so as not to cut it, I stole Maximillian’s unique magic and used it.

Yuyumado Gear Maiden.

A world made of gears. If you touch one, all the teeth in the chain move at the same time. There are no ‘imperfect’ concepts such as power or wear of friction teeth.

In the world of cogs, there are only two.

It doesn’t turn around.

While Maximilien was paying attention to his arm, he turned the saw blade the other way. My body whips up. Arms tremble from excessive pressure. The blade does not stand still, but the feeling of finger pressure is clear.

Fortunately, thanks to the medicine, it doesn’t hurt. thank you dope Please take care of me often in the future.

‘You’re good. However, that ability is originally mine.’

Maximilien was not just watching. As soon as he glared at me through the monocle, the saw blade stopped abruptly. My body, which was going up, followed the inertia and floated in the air.

A dizzying sensation as if gravity had disappeared. But if you’ve come this far, that’s enough. He pulled out two cards from his pocket.

Diamonds 2 and 8. All-purpose grappling hooks and all things thin.

Attach the wire to the hook and throw it towards the steel beetle. He vigorously pulled the hook on the cogwheel. I don’t have superhuman strength, but I can control the direction of falling.

The body draws a descending parabola until it reaches the side of the steel beetle. Before colliding, I stretched out both feet and landed on top of the cogs. As soon as his foot touches it, he moves the gear with Maximilien’s unique magic. Only the cogs I stepped on turned upward.

The cog wheel faithfully fulfilled its duties in its place. A cog wheel that looks like a huge watermill spins with my weight on it. It seems that the feet are throwing themselves. Balanced, he strode up. After all sorts of tricks, I reached the back of the steel beetle.

I heard Maximilien’s voice behind me.

“You are good at linking. Even if you turn the cog wheel, it’s a difficult skill to follow easily. Isn’t that just stealing unique magic?”

Immediately after hearing the voice, a huge hand slammed down on my side. The shock shakes the feet. I quickly backed away and saw a hand made of scrap iron and cogs scratching at a steel beetle. Sparks fly and bumps and bumps mesh with each other. After some friction, the iron hand became one with the iron beetle.

Maximilien pulled his arm as it was and jumped up at once. In just one second, I caught up with the height I had climbed with great effort. To the point of nonsense.

“Even so, only you can’t do it.”

“Haven’t I lived with cogs all my life? By comparison, you first used this ability a little while ago. Is that the ability of a human king?”

It may be thanks to mind reading, but let’s not tell you. I nodded.

“Humans are tool-using animals.”

“The king of humans is to skillfully use all tools. It’s not necessarily a story limited to tools, is it? Alchemy and qigong. All of them are very skilled.”

His gaze turned to my card. Perhaps because I am an alchemist, I grasped the essence of alchemy contained in my card at once.

“However, the work is disappointing compared to the skill level. It was made of alchemy steel without any function. Is that all?”

Chet. Do you want to know how much magic it takes to give alchemy a function? Oh you must know You must be the strongest alchemist in the military.

If you add your magic, I’ll make it better. After grumbling inside, I opened another card and asked.

“Can you show me something else?”

“It has to be shown. If you want to stay alive.”

do it if you wish Now, let’s start the magic show again…

I was about to do it, but Maximilien stretched out his arm without warning. At his command, a great steel hand tries to grab me. If caught there, it would look like minced meat put in a grinder.

But the place where I set foot is on the steel beetle. The footrests are all cogs. I tried to move the body by turning the footrest like before, but

the cogs don’t move. My body staggered because I couldn’t keep up with the accident.

‘You can’t run away the same way. Just like you, I can stop the gears you are moving.’

Assessing the situation and responding too quickly. Even if it rots, it is fleshy. Even though it has overwhelming power, it gradually reduces my options and puts pressure on me.

In the blink of an eye, the grip of steel covered his vision. Even if hit, seriously injured. If caught, there is no future. I need to evade, but I lost control of the footrest and am now staggering.

When plans go awry, they get flustered and make judgments too late. When fighting a strong opponent, even that brief gap is fatal. I missed the only chance to overcome the crisis, and the steel hand swept over my body…

‘Is this all?’

I think now is an opportunity.

Now that you are distracted and your view is obscured. He stretched out his hand as if waiting.

Hundreds of gears in front of your eyes. Most of them are simply added to increase destructive power, but there are also important gears that form the basic skeleton. If you don’t know, you can’t tell them apart, but I know exactly thanks to reading the designer’s thoughts.

I caught the target and took out the card.

Diamond 1 Pickpocket Skewer. Hold it upside down and insert it obliquely. After aiming for the gap in the gearwheel, it bends like a fishing rod under the pressure of the steel arm and bounces out. Blood is visible as if the grip was torn, but thanks to that, one cog is missing. The skeleton is visible through the skin.

It’s like pickpocketing. You have to peel off your shell and get your hands on the most important thing. I reached into it without a moment’s hesitation.

Maximilien can spin the cogs as much as he wants, but if that’s all he’s doing, it’s just idling. In order to wield power properly, you need a center to be a fulcrum.

Of course, the fulcrum is his body, and for that purpose, Maximilien has driven gears into every corner of his body.

In other words, that steel arm was connected to his body.

In other words, I can break his body through the gears connected to him.

reach out

Cogs overflow. A wave of steel sweeps through my body. Rotation can be stopped, but inertia cannot be eliminated. The accelerating steel pounded heavily on my body.

If it’s just a little bit later, my whole body will be crushed. before that.

My fingertips touched the skeleton.

A hand made of steel that mimics the human body. His ability is directed from the extremity to the center of the framework that makes up the skeleton. The gears that were moving stopped one by one. Fingers, wrists, elbows, shoulders… I stopped all the devices that were running in the joints in turn. And the steel arm he made ended there.

But the gears don’t end there.

Maximilien cut the flesh to attach the prosthetic arm and implanted steel into the shoulder blade. There are gears on the surface of the joint to control the prosthetic arm. From there, he captures the network of cogwheels extending throughout Maximilien’s body, which began anew.

“found.”

Even as my body was crushed by the steel, I clenched my hands tightly.

Yuyumado Gear Maiden.

‘What’s going on? Senses…?!’

By the time I realized it, it was already too late.

The target is all gears connected to me. Command all of them, including those inside Maximilien’s body. Commands that are as powerful as they are easy to understand.

turn in reverse until it breaks.

‘—-!!!!’

The steel arm exploded.

The parts that made up the arms rotated in different directions. Misalignment Torsional dysfunction and runaway. The steel arm, which had all sorts of problems with the mechanism, broke into pieces and bounced in all directions.

The steel arm that tried to attack me broke into thousands of gears and collided. Although they are small in size, all alchemy steels are level 3 or higher. Dense metal rips through the skin and hits the head. Some gears even rode over my body.

The shock threw his body backwards. My back hurts when I hit the floor, and my arm hurts from being crushed all over. I’m sure the drug you took earlier is still there. It seems that my body feels a crisis and calls out for an emergency.

Okay.

‘Cause I’m still alive

It was big that the steel arm exploded at the last moment. The impact was scattered all over the place as the binding force weakened. Thanks to that, the crisis of stampede was reduced to a throbbing pain all over the body. A very positive result.

the problem is.

“Yes, yes! I just found out!”

That Maximilien is still alive.

Failed.

No, it was half successful. Maximilien’s prosthetic arm was completely gone, and his exposed left half was dyed red. The cogwheels inside the body run wild, and the bleeding caused can be seen even outside the skin.

But he didn’t die.

Maximilien saw through exactly what I was trying to do and responded quickly. He barely survived thanks to the gears breaking the bond before changing his body. That’s a reflexive response. what a monster

he opened his mouth It seemed that he was still alive, as clear blood gushed out of his mouth.

“You can only control the gears that touch your body. yes?!”

…I even noticed my weakness while I was about to die.

As I said before that strength needs a center, it applies to me as well. My body must ‘contact’ his unique magic so I can steal his ability or I can’t use it.

I don’t want to tell you that, so let’s get away with it.

“No.”

“You go out to lie about the obvious! If only you could steer the gears out of reach! My limbs must have strangled me already! Just like you tried earlier!”

I’m quick to notice. More than anything else, it’s difficult to make a judgment in that short moment and act boldly.

“Is that why you climbed the steel beetle? If you step out, the distanced steel beetles will only obey my commands! Pretending to run away, I deliberately moved the battlefield here! Am I right?”

I have no choice but to admit it now. He nodded meekly.

“You didn’t grow up through strength alone. Unlike Historia.”

“haha! that’s what i’m saying The King of Humans is said to have lost most of his powers, but he’s a formidable opponent! It feels like I’m fighting myself!”

“I feel the same way. If you limit yourself to the concept of cogwheels, you are better than anyone else.”

He said it with sincerity.

He is growing every moment. If you limit yourself to the concept of a cogwheel, you are Maximilien, who has reached the pinnacle of humanity. I thought there was nowhere to go further, but I’m still developing even more.

“In a world made of gears, you are the pinnacle of human beings. Every step you take is a step that no one has ever taken. When you break new horizons, they will soon be conquered by humans. It is only in the field of ‘cogs’.”

It’s the biggest compliment I can give. It was sincere without exaggeration.

Maximilien, who listened with a blank expression for a moment, burst into laughter.

“Ha ha ha ha ha! Impressive! I’ve never needed anyone’s approval, but I’m happier than any praise I’ve heard in my life! Is this really the king of humans!”

“Well, I’m kicked out of the human representative, so I don’t have public confidence.”

“Wouldn’t it be nice to get your strength back!”

“Ahaha. Because I hate it. Even if I don’t do it with you. How do you know what you guys are going to do to my body?”

Even if that’s a wish, I can’t grant my wish to have my body at will. The most basic instinct of life. The constancy to protect myself is still the same.

Because the human king is a beast before being a king.

“And I have more to tell you… I’ll tell you this right before I kill you.”

“There will be no chance for that. I’ve figured out your abilities. Stop it if you act to prevent it from approaching.”

Maximilien held the prosthetic arm on his left arm in an uncomfortable position. clap clap clap. The prosthetic arm in the shape of an arm was reassembled, and a long groove was dug from the elbow to the back of the hand. As the tip parted, it took the form of a bowgun.

No, it was the bowgun itself.

A gear the size of a fingernail rolled in by itself and settled into the groove. The little cog wheel idled, hanging from its groove, at Maximilien’s command. The sound of the wind is so loud that it is hard to believe that it was made by wheezing small teeth. If it accelerates along the groove, the cogs will come flying at me with speeds comparable to bolts.

Maximilien pointed his improvised bowgun at me.

“Can you use anti-tank qigong? It doesn’t matter. There are enough bullets, so just shoot them until they run out. Now, if you have anything else to say, tell me.”

In the first place, he said he couldn’t use it because he lacked energy. Threatening people by pointing a gun at them. It’s a really good way to talk.

I grumbled and stacked the cards. Ten clovers for one diamond. I made a deck with a total of 11 cards and shuffled them lightly.

“No. A magician’s trick is that you shouldn’t reveal it even if a knife is inserted into your throat. That’s why I won’t tell you unless you’re a heavy-mouthed person. Like Lieutenant General Ebon, for example.”

Maximilien also remembered Lieutenant General Ebon, the lord of all things. he asked.

“Lieutenant General Ebon. It’s a name I miss. I hear he is in the abyss…”

Then he fell silent. Maximilien, recalling the information, glared at me with a sunken gaze.

“The heavy-mouthed person you spoke of must die soon. Did you kill him?”

“I didn’t kill him, he was with me at the time. If you want to hear my eulogy, please die by my hands. I will listen to it until I die.”

“…On the contrary, if I torture you until the point of death, I might hear it.”

“It’s a good attitude. Try it.”

I said that and grabbed the top card with both hands and pulled it out.

diamond queen. Queen of Heaven.

It was as if an unrealistically small folded blanket was unfolding. I wrapped the Queen of Heaven as a cloak. A warm feeling surrounds me.

Queen of Heaven. A premium fabric that’s a little warmer, a little tougher, and a little better hiding. But that’s not all. If that’s the only thing, there’s no reason to praise her as the Queen of Heaven.

The true power of the Queen of Heaven is the power to confine magical power. Even if it is light, if it is made of magic, it is perfectly confined. Enough to present pitch-black darkness to a vampire who hates light.

I declared by tightening my collar.

“I will do my best to resist.”