RRRRRRRING!

Today, too, the alarm clock went beyond noisy and straight into painful.

Was this what a cicada made of steel would sound like if it screamed its heart out? It felt as though thin blades were slashing at my ears. Unable to bear it, I sprang out of bed in a spasm and switched off the wall-mounted alarm clock.

Having headaches become part of my daily routine was not a particularly pleasant experience. I clutched my ringing head and gritted my teeth.

“Ugh. That goddamn alarm clock.”

You could set the Military State’s alarm clocks to ring earlier, but not later. No matter how late you set one, it would start blaring on its own at eight in the morning. The noise bordered on assault.

There was a reason people joked that if you wanted to find a corpse, you should look for a house where the alarm clock was still ringing. You would have to be dead to endure that racket.

The only way to enjoy sleeping in was to smash it, but then you had no guarantee of waking up tomorrow. In the Military State, where daily schedules meshed as precisely as gear teeth, being late was practically a crime.

“Vicious bastards. Would it kill you to let people wake up gently?”

After a long stretch, I stood at the washbasin and looked in the mirror. My face lay fractured along the cracks in the broken glass. The distortion twisted my mouth just enough to make my expression unreadable.

I was wearing a standard-issue shirt, the clothing the Military State had given me before putting me in restraints. After several days of wear, it was already covered in wrinkles.

“I should do some laundry soon. Find a change of clothes, too. One shirt hardly makes a complete wardrobe.”

People had lived here, so there had to be some wearable clothes left somewhere. I finished washing my face and headed outside, intending to find something, even if it was threadbare.

“Woof.”

I promptly closed the door again. Pulling hard on the handle and bracing my foot firmly against the door, I sank into thought.

Why was that furball waiting outside my room? Surely she wasn’t planning to drag me out for a walk first thing in the morning?

“Woof, woof.”

No. Absolutely not. I had plenty to do here. I was already stuck cooking every day because there was no one else to feed her. If I had to walk this dreadful freeloader every day as well, I would have no time to myself.

What was the harm in taking her for a little walk, you ask? This was the King of Dogs. She took walks like a king, too.

“Woof, woof, woof.”

I could hear her forepaws scratching insistently at the door. The laborers’ quarters had no locks, so each time a paw struck, the door rattled and my body jolted with it.

Azi wasn’t even trying to break down the door. She was merely scratching. The problem was that even that felt like being hit by a battering ram. At this rate, my strength would give out before the door did.

During sieges, even outnumbered defenders would often throw open the gates and charge. Not because they were stupid, but because they wanted to do something before collapsing helplessly from exhaustion.

With the heart of a commander whose fortress was about to fall, I reached for the handle.

“It’s on, you goddamn beast.”

I was afraid. How could I not be afraid of facing a monster who could separate me into blood, flesh, and bone with a single sweep of her hand?

But dogs were, by nature, loyal to humans. As the King of Dogs, Azi bore humans boundless goodwill and rarely attacked them. She might give me a little bite in protest, but she wouldn’t tear me to pieces.

Until now, I had treated her like royalty in the hope of winning her affection. That ended here.

Humanity would suffer defeat no longer.

We would not bow to the demands of beasts.

We would fight back. Even if it killed us.

With my resolve firmly set, I flung open the door. Azi, seated just outside, looked up at me.

She was camped in front of my room like hired muscle sent to collect a debt. With all the grim determination I could muster, I shouted at her.

“What have you come here for, you dreadful beast?!”

“Woof?”

If she shamelessly demanded a walk this early in the morning, I would put a leash on her and throw her out. If she begged for food like a pig, I would serve her a special doggy dinner loaded with spices.

It didn’t matter that I couldn’t beat her in a fight. What mattered was my attitude. My stubborn refusal to sit back and lose!

It’s on, you mutt!

“Woof.”

As I steeled myself, Azi slowly crawled over to my feet. Then she plopped down again and gave a long, lazy yawn.

Huh? She wasn’t... demanding a walk? Wasn’t pestering me for food?

I waited for about a minute, just in case, but she stayed still, only occasionally tapping me with her tail.

“You just came to see me. Whew. What a relief.”

Even the King of Dogs was still a dog. She needed companionship with humans. Unfortunately, the other humans here were each somewhat deficient when it came to bonding with a dog. The Regressor had no time to spare, and the vampire had no life to speak of. Right now, I was the only one the King of Dogs could properly connect with.

Relaxing, I slowly lowered my hand. Azi, still yawning lazily, saw it and rubbed her face against it.

“Yes. Now that’s how a pet should behave. You’ve finally learned your place!”

Humans were the undisputed rulers of the land. That was why the Beast Kings had taken human form and gained the ability to speak. As the spokesperson for an entire species, a Beast King needed to be able to communicate with the dominant species on land.

Like every other dog, she was overly energetic and quietly stubborn, but there was one difference: I could communicate with her anytime. Stroking Azi’s head, I curled my lips.

“Heh heh heh. Yes, good girl. Isn’t it so much nicer when you behave? I don’t even have to take matters into my own hands!”

As long as they obeyed, there were no better animals than dogs. Well, fine. This much I could tolerate.

“So obedient. I’ll be able to put you to good use. Follow me, Azi! I’ll need that nose of yours to search the administration office.”

“Woof!”

I headed toward the administration office, and Azi immediately got up and followed me.

If this had been an ordinary prison, a tall tower would have stood beside it.

It would have held its head high, some two stories above the training facility’s roof, looking down on prisoners and laborers swarming like ants. Bristling with searchlights like the eyes of deep-sea fish, it would have kept a close watch on every prisoner. If any slipped away from the beams and hid in the shadows, it would have shouted like a child who had lost a toy and tracked them down by any means necessary. What punishment would follow hardly needed explaining.

But this was Tantalus. A place that held only vicious criminals beyond even the Military State’s control.

To manage these prisoners and survive, the Military State would have to make a corresponding investment. Station an army here, or dispatch someone as powerful as a general.

Of course, that was out of the question. Wasting that much military strength on mere prison management would be grossly inefficient.

Having calculated that abandoning the place altogether was more economical than stubbornly pouring manpower and resources into its upkeep, they had dropped the entire prison into the bottomless pit and washed their hands of it. Let the inmates kill each other or keep each other alive as they pleased.

Anyway, perhaps that was why Tantalus had only a rectangular prefab building resembling a warehouse instead of a tall, imposing watchtower. It was a shipping-container building set apart by a modest wall.

It wasn’t even intact anymore. Frowning, I stepped over the collapsed wall.

“Oof. What a complete mess.”

One wall had collapsed entirely. Judging by the enormous handprint in it, someone had apparently smashed it with a slap. The iron plates reinforcing the building were riddled with dozens of little holes, as though someone had used them for archery practice, but the edges showed signs of melted metal. What had they fired? Flaming arrows couldn’t do that.

The roof had caved in terribly. I didn’t need to look far for the reason. A huge chunk of concrete with a steel girder attached, the sort you might see at a construction site, had crashed down onto it. One of the building’s four corners was missing in a tooth-shaped pattern, as though something had bitten it off... But surely no creature with a mouth that large existed. I had to be imagining it, right?

What on earth had happened here? I crept forward, hunched and wary, when the ground suddenly shifted. Quickly crouching down to inspect it, I found a cut through the concrete floor as clean as a slice through cake. This was probably the Regressor’s work.

Something had happened here. Something. But I was only a mind reader. I couldn’t tell what had happened in the past. All I could surmise was that tremendous hatred and violence had swept through the place.

Unable to bring myself to take another step, I scratched my chin for no particular reason and turned to Azi.

“Azi, do you happen to remember what happened here?”

“Woof! Everyone fought!”

“Uh, who, exactly? Why were they fighting? Could you explain in detail—the who, what, when, where, why, and how?”

“Woof?”

“Never mind. My fault for asking you.”

Azi probably hadn’t taken anyone’s side. Being loyal to all humans also meant being equally indifferent to all humans. Even after all my efforts to win her affection, if I fought someone else, she wouldn’t side with either of us.

Actually, that pissed me off. After I’d treated her so well, she wouldn’t take my side?

“Hah. All that effort for nothing. No matter how much I feed you or walk you, a dog is still a dog...”

“I like walks!”

“I know. I just don’t like them as much as you do.”

“Woof?!”

Azi’s eyes went wide with horror. Was it really that shocking that I wasn’t particularly fond of walks?

As though suddenly anxious, she began hopping up and down and speaking more fluently than I had ever heard her.

“Woof! Walks, good! Refreshing! Sometimes see amazing things! Fun!”

“Yes, yes.”

“Walks have lots of good things! Feel good! Wide open! Run around!”

So what? Was she actually trying to persuade me? Hah. I might have fallen so low as to become a prisoner, but would I really let a dog talk me around?

After earnestly preaching the merits of walks, using what passed for advanced vocabulary by her standards, Azi looked up at me with sparkling eyes.

“You hate walks?”

“I like walks, too.”

“Woof!”

Too early to celebrate. Watching Azi spin in circles, I added a few words.

“I just like lying down and sleeping much more.”

“W-woof?!”

“We’re running late. Let’s go.”

Right. What was the point of asking her? I would have to find out myself.

Conversing at her level, I stepped past the door, which had been torn into three strips, and entered the administration office.

What had someone done to rip it apart like paper? It was an iron door, for crying out loud.

Maybe I should just turn back after all.

There were no lights inside the building, so it was dark. Had the roof been intact and the walls still standing, the unlit interior would have been pitch-black. Fortunately, light seeped through holes the architect had never intended, making it bright enough to distinguish objects.

As befitted an administration office, the wreckage contained what had once been machinery. “Had once been” because it was now so badly damaged that I could barely recognize its shape. Scattered nuts and bolts. Split gears. Instrument panels with their edges torn off. Severed golem arms and legs lying about dismally, and so on.

The machinery and magic golems that had once managed this place had been utterly annihilated by some attack.

“Looks like they smashed everything on their way out. Can’t say I blame them.”

You’ve taken such good care of us, so let us leave you needing care yourselves. An admirable attitude. Mumbling idle nonsense, I rummaged through the mountain of rubble. If there were any items or equipment the Military State hadn’t recovered, I intended to help myself.

But there was a lot of rubble, and it was dark inside. At a loss for where to begin in the gloom, I straightened up and wiped away my sweat. The building had looked so small from outside, but now that I had to search it myself, it seemed annoyingly large. And every piece of debris was so heavy that I had to grunt and strain each time I lifted one.

Even if treasure lay hidden in that darkness, I had neither a way to find it nor the strength to get it out.

“Tsk. A wasted trip?”

Just as I decided to head back, Azi’s head snapped around, and she burrowed into the rubble.

Every time she dug with both hands, large chunks of debris flew through the air with bizarre noises. I hid beneath the sagging roof and waited for the commotion to end. After casually tossing aside reinforced concrete and a large antenna, Azi pointed at a small cabinet lying amid the wreckage, her tail wagging furiously.

Recognizing it, I cautiously stood up.

“That’s a secure storage cabinet, isn’t it? Well done finding that.”

“I did good?”

“Yes. Good girl, good girl. You’re the best puppy.”

“Woof!”

As I praised her and stroked her head, Azi bounded around the cabinet. I went over to it and pulled hard on the handle.

But the cabinet, its side deeply dented, refused to open. Whether it was locked tight or something had jammed, no amount of pulling helped. Something must have caught inside and damaged the mechanism. It wasn’t that I lacked strength.

But who was I? An intelligent human being. And what defined humans? Tools.

“First class, second class, and third class. Which class of lever do we need here?”

“Woof! Walk!”

“First class, you idiot.”

“Woof? I’m not stupid!”

I wedged a steel girder into the gap left by the dent and pushed down with all my might.

... It didn’t open.

Ahem. But who was I? An intelligent human being. When my own strength wasn’t enough...

“Azi, could you help me?”

“Woof? I’m not stupid!”

“Yes, yes, I know. Now, doggy punch!”

“Woof, woof?”

“That means hit here with your forepaw. Hard.”

“Woof? Like this?”

The instant Azi raised her paw, I turned and fled. Behind me, her arm curved in a blur.

KABOOM!

With a deafening crash, the cabinet shot roughly three meters into the air. The tightly shut door spun off overhead and embedded itself in the roof, while the steel girder I had used as a lever fell to the ground, bent into a V. The airborne cabinet came crashing down upside down.

That doggy punch certainly delivered.

“Oh, good girl. You really are the best puppy in the world.”

“Best?”

“Yes. The best.”

“Woof! I’m the best!”

Leaving the triumphant Azi behind, I examined the cabinet’s contents. Inside were several crystal balls that looked like spares, along with a few paper documents. Was that all? A little disappointing.

Reluctant to give up, I took another look inside and spotted a round object gleaming a leaden gray in the back. It must have been too dark to see before. I reached deep inside and took it out.

An exclamation escaped me before I knew it.

“Good lord. They left this behind?”

This. I could put this to use.