As Maple walked around the town, it was unsurprisingly the machines made by the ‘second one’ which kept catching her eyes.
If anything, there was little else here that looked interesting.
“Hmm… Maybe I will go exploring in the field as well then.”
There was lots of variety in the terrain, with places that formed cliffs and numerous mountains that even reached the clouds.
It was as if those who could not fly had no right to explore this field.
“Syrup! Let’s go!”
Maple used her usual method to fly in the sky.
The only thing that was unusual here was that there were other people flying in the sky as well.
“The second layer is the best for a stroll. Yes.”
The most motivated players had already discovered a dungeon and were headed towards it now.
Maple was only following after them, she didn’t even know that they had found a dungeon.
“Is there something there?”
Yes, she did not know anything.
Just why they were crossing deep, deep canyons full of mist and heading for the mountain up ahead.
Sometimes there would be strong gusts of wind that assaulted them from the side.
“Whaa! Ahh!”
There was no way that Maple could hold on to Syrup with STR 0.
And while the other players were strapped to their flying machines, Maple was just riding on top of Syrup.
And so when the wind blew and she lost her balance, it was Maple alone that fell upside down and dropped into the canyon.
“AAaaaaaaa!? Sy-syrup! Syrup!!”
She could not see the ground. She did not even know if there was a ground.
Even Maple knew that falling from such a height would not be painless.
She called out desperately for Syrup, but it was not possible for it to catch up with her.
“Savagery!”
The only thing that was in Maple’s favor now, was that the thick mist covered her as she transformed.
Now, no matter how much damage she received, it would have no effect on her body directly.
Far below, Maple moved inside of the thick mist. Her appearance was still that of a monster.
“Ah, huh? I didn’t receive any damage?”
It wasn’t because she had high defense power that she didn’t receive any damage.
It was because the settings here had not included it, to begin with.
Maple returned to her normal form and started to walk through the fog.
“Hm? This…”
She felt her foot hit against something and bent down to pick it up.
It was a broken machine.
Or the remains of a machine that was made from many different parts.
Maple decided to check her blue panel for the name of this area.
“This is the… ‘Dream Cemetery’? I wonder if it is related to what the old man said?”
There were many clues that were difficult to find.
And the second layer had parts that were difficult to find.
There were special requirements in order to come here.
Maple had blasted through all of these by coincidence, and so arrived here.
“Alright…I better move carefully.”
Maple went walking through the spaces between the piles of machinery.
“The mist is…thinning out?”
She walked towards the area where it was thinner, and finally reached the end.
A clearing that was surrounded by a mountain of broken machines, with blue lights that danced like fireflies.
And in the corner was a man, sitting against the rubble.
His body was a machine.
But he looked too human to be a machine.
But then again, he also looked too machine to be human.
There was no light in his eyes, half of his arm was missing on one side, and there was a gaping hole in his chest.
“Ahh!?”
What jumped out of Maple’s inventory without her order, was the gear that she had found by accident.
It bounced out towards the man and was sucked into the hollow in his chest.
Nothing happened for a while, and so Maple cautiously came closer to the man.
“Are, are you okay?”
“Gg..gaa…”
The man started to talk just as Maple had let her guard down. She was so surprised that she hid behind her shield.
“I AM THE KING…KING OF MACHINES…THE PRODUCT OF GREAT WISDOM AND DISTANT DREAMS…”
“…”
“I AM THE KING…THE OLD KING…HE WHO WAS REMOVED…”
Maple listened to the man quietly.
“I AM…WHAT AM…I…”
His voice grew smaller and eventually, he stopped talking.
“Is, is he broken…?”
As Maple worried about him, the dancing blue lights started to surround the man.
They were sucked into the hole in his chest, filling it with light.
“Ggg…”
“Oh, good… So you aren’t broken!”
Maple was happy at first but quickly realized that something was wrong.
“I AM…KING OF TRASH…THE KING WHO SLEEPS IN GARBAGE…DREAMS AND MIRACLES…ALL ARE TRASH.”
The man said, and then his body transformed.
The nearby garbage was sucked into his chest, he turned them into weapons that he stuck onto his body.
Swords, guns, armor, they were created one after another.
“YOU TOO…I WILL TURN YOU INTO TRASH.”
“…I will return you back to normal!”
Maple held her great shield and pulled out her shortsword.
She had an idea of what had caused him to go mad.
The blue lights. The lights of the machines from the ‘second one.’
“I will only attack that part!”
Just as Maple decided this, her vision was filled with bluish-white bullets.