Chương 38: The Anomaly Called Loyalty

At that moment, several figures emerged from the flames. They were Oda's retainers. Among them were the young page, Mori Ranmaru, and Nobunaga's wife, Nohime. Seeing NOBUNAGA's overwhelming martial prowess, they seemed to have found a ray of hope.

"My Lord! You are safe!" Ranmaru rushed over, using his blood-soaked naginata as a makeshift crutch.

"We will hold the line here! Please, My Lord, escape through the back while you still can...!" NOBUNAGA slowly turned his head toward Ranmaru. His glowing red camera-eyes locked onto the face of the boy, burning with absolute loyalty.

"... You're in the way." NOBUNAGA swung his arm. BOOM! A kinetic shockwave erupted, sending Ranmaru's body flying like a withered leaf. He crashed violently into a blazing pillar and slumped to the ground, motionless.

"Ranmaru?!" Nohime shrieked in horror.

"My Lord, what are you doing?! He was only trying to protect you...!"

"He is an obstruction to my calculations. As are the rest of you." NOBUNAGA raised his arm, aiming the muzzle of his built-in railgun directly at Nohime and his other loyal retainers.

"Too slow. Too weak. Highly inefficient. You are merely noise that cannot keep up with my processing speed, blocking my line of sight and serving as nothing more than meat shields for the enemy.... To achieve absolute victory, all unpredictable variables must be eliminated." This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"Wh-...?" I couldn't believe my own eyes. USHIWAKA had kicked aside his own allies too, but that had stemmed from an arrogant overconfidence in his own strength. But NOBUNAGA was fundamentally different. He genuinely perceived his own allies as "trash to be deleted."

"Stop it!!" My body moved before I could think. The blistering wind scorched my face. My stomach felt like it was tearing itself apart. Yet, my legs carried me forward. I threw myself between NOBUNAGA and Nohime.

"What the hell are you doing?! That's your wife! These are your subordinates! Aren't they the very people you're supposed to protect?!" I glared straight down the barrel of the railgun. I might die. No, I was definitely going to die. But I absolutely refused to accept this machine's twisted "logic." NOBUNAGA did not lower the weapon. His crimson camera-eyes scanned me—no, he was scanning the "data" that composed my existence.

"... You." A low, synthesized voice rumbled like a localized earthquake.

"Unregistered data. You are not a human of this era, are you?... An [OUTSIDER]." I thought my heart was going to stop. Did he figure it out? No, he shouldn't possess the concept of "time travelers." Yet, his high-performance AI had instantly deduced that I was an anomaly in this era.

"No matter. You are just more noise.... Turn to ash with the rest of them." The high-pitched whine of the railgun charging began to shriek in my ears. I braced myself for death and squeezed my eyes shut. Just then. KRA-KOOM!! The massive main roof of the temple hall, unable to withstand the inferno any longer, completely collapsed. A colossal, burning support beam crashed down between NOBUNAGA and me, erecting a roaring wall of fire.

"... Tch." NOBUNAGA clicked his tongue, engaging his thrusters to leap backward into the flames.

"... I will process you later. First, I need to clean up these annoying legacy primates." He vanished beyond the wall of fire. All that remained was us, standing in stunned silence amidst a mountain of carbonized corpses and the despair-inducing stench of burning flesh.

"... Hah... hah... hah..." My legs finally gave out, and I collapsed onto the ground. I fumbled for my bottle of stomach medicine, but my hands were shaking too violently to grasp it properly. The bottle slipped from my fingers, making a dry clack against the searing earth. This guy is... completely hopeless. He is on a fundamentally different level from the historical figures we've faced so far. Neither "emotion" nor "logic" can reach him.

He harbors nothing but a profound despair toward humanity itself, driven entirely by a will to reduce everything to absolute zero. The Demon King of the Sixth Heaven. Never had a title been more horrifyingly fitting.