Blue Reaper  

The royal capital of Blue Country. In the huge prehistoric ruins underground, the relics of many ancient civilizations lie dormant.

Presumably, the Blue Reaper also originated there.

According to the legends passed down among the Blue Royal Family, when a great disaster strikes the country, the Blue Reaper will respond to the grudges of the people—sure to destroy the enemies that have wreaked havoc.

Now, the Imperial Army's mechanical weapons have gone, and we now stand before the Blue Reaper. 

However, it seems the Blue Reaper sees us as the enemy.

It’s impossible to know a god’s true intentions, for gods have their own divine values that are incompatible with humans.

This will be my record of events. I am Clemens, a former Imperial military engineer. 

As I saw that Blue Reaper, I finally remembered... I had once visited the deep underground of the Blue Country.

Just after the great war, the Blue Country and the Empire still had a cooperative relationship. At the request of the Blue Royal Family, an engineering team from the Empire had been sent to investigate the ancient ruins.

Included in the group were myself and the young prodigy, Iseria.

Several tectonic shifts had rendered old maps of the passageways useless, and we were unable to find the imperative "Machine God's cocoon."

However, I was still able to see something interesting... 

It was the sleeping form of the Blue Reaper. 

So such a legendary thing actually existed here? 

The royal family was aware of the Blue Reaper's existence, but they made no attempt to hide it. Rather, revealing its existence to us was likely a military tactic.

What is the Blue Reaper mentioned here? Allow me to explain. 

The ancient civilized people had a completely different technological system from the current Emerg.

At the time, Emerg was inhospitable and lacking in ether, so they constructed various mechanical gods to optimize the continent's environment.

Gods—a being from mythology.

Some of them appear in the scriptures of Mythos.

The chief god who controls lightning, and the god of fire—who is just as powerful—are particularly famous examples. The gods have the ability to reshape the world.

But gods in Emerg were giant humanoids created by humans for a specific purpose. 

The Blue Reaper was one such machine.

However, over the years, the meaning of god itself has changed in people's minds.

It's highly likely that the purpose and function of the Blue Reaper (as I have designated it) has also changed from its original intentions.

As I stand in front of the real thing, I am convinced of this.

It’s said that the Machine Gods operate by gathering the will of the people.

This is how it is in the legends of Blue, and how it is portrayed in the Mythos church. It's probably the same in the folklore of the desert as well.

Can will and emotions become energy?

In reality, the church's nation is protected by a barrier called the "Wall of the Heart," which is created by the prayers of its followers. The wall is generated by an ancient device. It is invisible—but strong—and automatically rejects the unsuitable.

Not even all of the knowledge in the Empire could decipher the mechanism behind the device, but the mere fact that it exists is proof enough of the power of human will.

But… What was the Blue Reaper originally intended to use its might against?

Coming face to face with it, I realized that it was a being of terrible power. It didn’t suit the peaceful Blue Country. 

Could it be that a grudge has transformed the Blue Reaper? Or has this been a god of indiscriminate slaughter since ancient times? 

...I don't want to believe such an accursed thing.

Glenn, the Blue Prince and next king, later testified: 

—I think it was the Blue Royal Family two generations ago who unsealed the Blue Reaper... 

The Machine Gods exist in what are called cocoons or eggs, and by keeping them asleep in these forms, the etheric environment around the citadel was maintained. 

But one day, the flow of ether began to break down…

In hindsight, I think this was a sign of the massive ether anomaly that triggered the great war that engulfed the entire continent…

Not wanting their country to be ravaged by an upset in ether, the royal family came up with the idea of awakening one of the gods to regulate the environment.

The protocol for controlling a Machine God had been passed down to the royal family for ages, but it had been long forgotten, and no one had attempted in recent years.

But even so, if by some chance we could control the Machine God, we could overcome this crisis... 

My great grandfather, the king at the time, ordered his aides to perform a ritual to awaken the sleeping god. 

And it was the Blue Reaper who opened his eyes…

Nowadays, the Blue Reaper is known as a being that truly brings death, but when it first awakened, he was only intimidating in appearance.

The king of the time tried various commands to control the Blue Reaper—but it wouldn't move.. It just seemed to stand there.

So the king… made changes to the Reaper.

He used an art utilizing vengeful spirits that had been recorded since ancient times, and the Blue Reaper, who had been cursed with this death art that could even control lesser gods, finally began to work as planned.

The sorcerers had the Blue Reaper collect trace amounts of high quality ether and then used the ancient civilization's devices underground to multiply it. 

In time, the fortified city, whose foundations and soil had been exhausted, gradually regained its luster and was revitalized. 

However, in exchange for the ether, the Blue Reaper… was secretly giving birth to poison.

Also, the high quality ether that had been collected from somewhere…

In reality, it was the hearts and souls of the dead.

Furthermore, the original Blue Commandments forbade the royal family from bearing weapons, so as tensions for war grew across the continent, the Reaper was deployed as a self defense mechanism for the citadel—separate from the military organization.

From this point on, the Reaper truly became the symbol of death. 

Feeding on the wishes and lifespans of the city's people. 

Transforming ether into the power of destruction and devastation. 

Cursing any approaching enemies and sending them to hell.

The poison sprinkled by the Blue Reaper continued to afflict the armies of countries that attacked the citadel in an attempt to steal Blue Country's ether. 

The Blue Reaper's overwhelming power protected Blue Country. 

The beautiful Blue Country... A country separated from the outside world by a wall—filled with hatred and poison.

I never knew that the royal family had used such methods to fight. For a long time, my father and brother didn’t reveal the truth to me. I wasn’t likely to inherit the throne.

After several wars, the Blue Reaper is returned to the depths of the earth—no longer having a role to play in fighting an enemy.

But the Reaper was not sealed away. 

Knowing that they could obtain more ethereal power from the gods more safely by keeping them half asleep, my grandfather, father, and the royal family kept this a secret from the citizens and foreign countries, and continued to use the Reaper to power the city and manage the environment. 

That was a grave mistake.

They gained more power this way, but the curse of the vengeful spirits placed upon the Reaper remained.

The grudge and poison had no visible form, but they had been building up for a long, long time. 

The people, of course, do not know this.

Even the royal family forgot about the Reaper for a while... 

Then, during the previous war, when my father, the king, and his men were about to send the Blue Reaper to the front lines once more…

They finally realized the danger.

This will be my record of events. I am Iseria, the Empire's highest ranking engineer. 

Many Dominants remain in the vast ancient ruins beneath the Blue Citadel.

Dominants—in other words, Machine Gods. 

Prehistoric humans prospered under these gods. If a god controlled by humans can control ether, then that is exactly the mechanism the Imperial Army is seeking. 

We must obtain it at all costs!

Our elite EEF forces used the latest weapon, the Tetrachord, to destroy the Blue Citadel, and quickly took control of the city. 

Then we discovered a new Dominant signal underground. We charged into the ruins to seize the Machine God, Thor. 

But... hehe, this guy is a surprise.

It’s a Doppel-Dominant. Blue Reaper is certainly a fitting name.

As an inferior god, once its functions go awry, it immediately loses reason and intelligence and resorts to indiscriminate slaughter. 

The fact that the people of Blue Country were keeping such a useless god as a pet shows how surprisingly foolish and kniving they are.

"Ignore the Reaper. If we ignore it, it'll eventually become useful... Although, with our EEF equipment, it won't be difficult to exterminate." 

Iseria distorted the ether signal to distract the Reaper, and the Imperial Army passed by calmly.

The Blue Reaper, driven mad by his sudden and unexpected awakening, was looking for someone to unleash his curse on. 

And so he sets his sights on Shizuma and the Excavation Brigade.

“It’s not my fault… I really had no idea…!”

Glenn runs away in the face of the Blue Reaper's threat.

The poisonous Blue Reaper attacked the Brigade directly with close combat. Its sharp claws approached, threatening to tear everyone to shreds

Clemens thought of a countermeasure and took action himself.

"Although he's a god, if he's a machine, he's bound to have a mechanical weakness. We can try to exploit that—it’s time for me to draw my own sword as well… Shizuma! To stop him, we need to use the amplifier in his belly. Destroy it! I'll take on the challenge too. Let's do it together!"

"So the Blue Reaper was also a subspecies of the Machine God. Do you think the Blue Reaper is dead after all that, Prince Glenn?"

"Yes, I'd like to think so, Professor Clemens... All of the Reaper's amplifiers were destroyed." 

"You’d like to think so... You’re unsure?"

"The Reaper probably won't be reactivated for a while, But the Machine Gods should have the ability to regenerate themselves…”

"I see. He's not moving now, but we can't let our guard down as to when he will be resurrected. Some kind of countermeasure will eventually be necessary."

"Yes..."

"Well, the next problem is the Machine God Thor. What is the Empire planning to do with him?"

"I'm sure they think they can control him if they can control him from within the cocoon... but even the Blue Royal Family had given up on controlling Thor... His power is too great.”

“I’d like to stop the awakening altogether… Wouldn’t you agree?”

"My skills and knowledge are somewhat lacking, so I would like to borrow the wisdom of Saint Lumiera of the Mythos church."

“Sanctuary? It seems we’ll be stepping into unknown territory.”

× × × 

But…

The Blue Reaper, supposedly destroyed, could no longer be seen upon returning.

Has he vanished, or...? 

The next time he appears before us, will he be an ally or foe?