...This is bad.
I'd been driven into a pretty tight corner. My condition was garbage, and the opponent had gotten nastier. Can I even pull this off...?
The only silver lining was that the other Sinners were all in near-peak condition.
In a way, what I'd done was basically just holding back an enemy boss with one broken piece of equipment that wasn't even worth its price. Maybe they'd anticipated something like this.
...If I interpret that properly, it means even if I'd died back there, it wouldn't have mattered much.
<...?>
So that obnoxious clock-headed thing sent me out with the mindset that it wouldn't matter if I died?
I was about to raise a complaint... but since he'd be sharing the pain anyway, I should let it go.
I caught sight of Ms. Ishmael glancing over here now and then with worried eyes.
...So there is at least one person worried about me. I haven't lived for nothing.
Now then, what should I do?
My eyes had no room left to spare, my body was in terrible shape, and there was still nobody who could help me and take over the exchange for me...
Ah, that's Ms. Otis's voice.
"Medic! Move to the rear!"
Medic? Me...?
Was she calling me that because I used to be a doctor? Very like Ms. Otis.
Though I'm not exactly handling treatment or anything in earnest.
Still, telling me to pull back... had she figured out some kind of ability? A gimmick, maybe.
Tap-tat!
For now, I had to follow orders, so I lightly kicked off the ground and leapt backward.
That left the tree exposed, but she must have given the order because she had a plan. In the end, Ms. Otis's orders would have Dante at the end of them anyway.
After I put some distance between us and watched quietly, Mr. Dongrang soon lost interest in me and rushed in to tear apart the dry trees.
And then...
Crack-crack! Crack-crack!
He completely smashed the tree that had been on the verge of collapsing under the Sinners' relentless assault.
The trees, already broken down into a uniform state, crumbled far too easily beneath Mr. Dongrang's teeth.
But was the fact that they hadn't been destroyed any further right before breaking down Mr. Dongrang's ability?
The Sinners didn't seem capable of setting seven or more trees into the exact same state.
Krrk, crack-crack!!
If that assumption was true, then only Mr. Dongrang could completely destroy them?
So he had some kind of ability related to that.
Not exactly information I needed.
Haa... should I ask for my clock back? Blood's pouring out of my left upper body.
It's not like there'd be that many openings, but pain is pain.
Ah, that's the last tree.
Crack, crack—
"Ah..."
Then Mr. Dongrang's body, having destroyed every tree, suddenly came to a halt.
And then... he seemed to give up on something and let the strength drain from his body.
What kind of gimmick is that supposed to be?
In any case, what had appeared was a clear opening.
At the chance to pile on damage, the various Identities all rushed in without hesitation.
*Thud—! Slash—! Zzzzt... BOOM──!!!*
Not me, though. I should leave myself enough strength to survive.
I'm already walking a tightrope as it is; I need to keep my stamina up.
It feels like pouring water into a bottomless jar, but still.
BOOM───!!!
"...I'll tear it off!"
With Sinclair's powerful strike, Mr. Dongrang's upper body completely collapsed.
Wait, is it over?
Seeing Mr. Dongrang's body, which looked dead no matter how you looked at it, I hurriedly scanned my surroundings, but his psyche showed no sign of stopping.
...Phase three. There was one more.
I cleared my head again and took it in.
What remained of him, with his upper body completely blown away, was the lower half of a cow.
And above it, attached precisely around the upper chest, was what looked like the true body: an eye.
Above that, muscle tissue had tangled together, forming something vaguely mouth-like, like a worm.
Do I have to step in again?
"It's too late."
Just as I showed signs of getting back up, Dante gently stopped me with a hand.
...Right. If you've worked someone over hard enough for two phases, you should let them off a bit.
I naturally stepped out of the battlefield and sat down beside Dante.
Honestly, if I'd basically held out against two phases by myself, I think the rest should handle the rest on their own. I don't know. I did everything I was supposed to.
<...>
"What are you looking at?"
He probably understood better than anyone how hard I'd been pushed, but I'd still gone through a lot. I should be allowed to rest this comfortably!
Thinking I might as well stop the bleeding and rest properly, I just sat down on the floor at my leisure.
From here on, I was basically out of the fight anyway. Unless Mr. Dongrang decided to show us a fourth transformation or something.
Hah, when is that fight going to end?
Ah, the trees grew back. They look a little different. Are we supposed to break those too?
"...Wait."
"It's all burned away."
Wheeeeng—!!
No, that thing is, a wide-area laser—
Bwoooang──!!
"Wah!"
Instinctively, I grabbed Dante and rolled along the floor with him to dodge.
Those crazy bastards didn't block it... and just dodged on their own. Did they think I'd be able to save Dante just fine on my own?
...Hey. Am I basically half out of the fight from here on? I'm practically noncombat now.
Don't keep assigning me work...
BOOM───!!!
"...Burn to death."
With that savage voice, Mr. Dongrang's body was drenched in blood.
He looked plainly exhausted, plainly wounded.
I thought it was finally over... but for some reason, the farm-like backdrop didn't change.
Instead, Mr. Dongrang stood there without doing anything.
Near him, there was a force that seemed to be made by some kind of compulsion...
Ah, they're giving us time to turn the clock, plain as day.
Realizing it immediately, Dante turned his clock. And then...
As soon as that ended, Mr. Dongrang's color bloomed within the psyche.
The location remained the same. No, more precisely, the same place, but a little brighter.
A field not yet swallowed by factories and fire... a radiant field.
My first guess was that it symbolized his bright past.
Mr. Dongrang opened his eyes there in a normal body.
"...I see. I'll probably be dying. In a place this peaceful..."
Step... step...
A fully grown cow, yellowish in color, slowly walked toward Mr. Dongrang from far away.
It was a sight that almost made it seem as though it recognized the one who had once been its master.
But...
The cow simply passed him by.
Without even a glance.
Without any sign that it had recognized who he was.
As if he were nothing more than a stranger.
"Ha, haha... it really is true, then. You really don't recognize me. Even if I'm filled with shells right now, I know... We're almost there. Soon... I'll make my own technology and fill it with a core."
Mr. Dongrang's voice grew stronger as he spoke.
...So he'd finally found his path.
With strength returning to his body, he quickly approached the cow that had passed him by.
"I'll gather the team again... and hire an additional secretary... There's a lot to do."
When he finally reached the cow, he raised the syringe in his hand...
"So... it looks like I won't need you anymore."
With a chilling thunk, the point of view shifted.
The place that appeared again was... where Mr. Dongrang and Alfonso had first spoken before the tears began to fall.
The difference was that Mr. Dongrang was torturing someone there.
Alfonso's voice rang out from that place.
"...Dongrang? How much longer am I supposed to wait?"
"Ah, sorry. I just remembered something I left behind in my hometown for a moment... but now I've realized that instead of thinking about what I left behind, I should be thinking about what I'm going to obtain."
"Anyone can be foolish for a moment. So... you know a way to keep tears flowing endlessly?"
"To gather a certain amount, we torture people... heal them with tears... then torture them again... But the tears used that way are far too precious."
"So we've been importing footage from various Wings and back-alley organizations."
"Those audiovisual materials have been getting more expensive too, haven't they? Other factions are faintly, but clearly, catching on as well. They don't know how it's used by our K Corp, though."
While the conversation between Mr. Dongrang and Alfonso continued, the one being tortured let out a deranged laugh.
"Hh... hhh... heheh... this time, could you... break my fingers?"
"Look at that. The subordinate tied up here doesn't seem sane either."
After Mr. Dongrang finished speaking, a thought flashed through my head.
So that's the backstory behind how that technology came to be used...
After that brief thought, the psyche peeled away again, and the depth once more revealed the twisted Mr. Dongrang.
Still in that place, burned out and filled with smoke, Mr. Dongrang muttered:
"Ms. Carmen... I think it's different. The road wasn't over, and now I can finally see the path I have to take."
...Carmen? That name... I feel like I've heard it somewhere. I think I know who that is...
While I was lost in other thoughts, Yi Sang, having seen Mr. Dongrang's psyche, seemed to realize something.
"Dongrang... after all this time... have you returned to this road?"
"Even if I look into those eyes now... I feel no pity like I did in the past. Instead... do you see? The technology created by clinging like a leech to the glorious shadow of the Association's glass... has become the banner that hoisted K Corp's Singularity even higher."
"...Yes. I can see it clearly."
"Yeongji-hyung left, and Dongbaek returned to flowers..."
Wooooong──
As Mr. Dongrang's words continued, the psyche changed to another place.
Hah... right, it'd be a shame if it ended here, wouldn't it?
"What remains is my glass, born like a mutation, parasitic on Yeongji's glass... a copy that is neither one thing nor the other. What use is technology that cannot change the world?"
Then Mr. Dongrang's form changed into a fully human shape.
"So you should stop your heart too. It is the tears' role to weep in place of the painful, sorrowful heart."
Wow, Mr. Dongrang's fourth transformation.
...I know this is ruining the mood, but could you maybe cut me some slack just once?
I said it'd be a shame and all that, but I really don't have any strength left.