The paper was yellowed, its edges curled, while the ink bore an eerie hue. The arrangement of the notes seemed almost as though they were whispering.
The few old sheets of music did not make Uta wary at all. She even instinctively began humming them, but the moment the first note left her lips, Uta's consciousness began to blur.
The notes seemed to begin singing on their own, and according to a particular rhythm, they opened a door that should never have been opened.
"Hermes! Get everyone out of here! Take every living person you can see somewhere safe!"
"Understood, Princess Nanamo! But please leave this dangerous place as soon as possible too!"
Hermes's body began to expand, transforming into a broad cloud carpet that swept up the local residents along its flight path before carrying them toward a distant mountaintop.
After several trips, lots of people had already been evacuated.
"None of the countries we've visited so far have ever had something like this happen! I don't want to open the newspaper and see some ridiculous rumor like 'Princess of the Ryugu Palace Destroys an Entire Nation'!
You go save people. You don't need to worry about anything else!"
Nanamo understood rumors very well, and she also knew just how skilled the newspapers of the sea were at making things up.
The people who read newspapers had limited ability to analyze the truth. Once certain rumors spread, trying to refute them could exhaust a person to death.
As she spoke, Nanamo threw a punch upward, smashing apart the collapsing roof.
"Now, can any of you tell me what the hell this thing is? Why does this child have a monster like this inside her?
"Ei—"
This time, "monster" did not refer to something monstrously powerful, but to a genuinely unknown creature. In the sky, something that could just barely be considered humanoid was floating in the air.
It wore a top hat, and beneath the brim were not human facial features, but a mask-like face.
Its torso looked as though it were dressed in a tailcoat, while its two arms were elongated sections of piano keyboards. At this moment, they were flailing wildly, destroying the country below.
Gordon sat collapsed among the rubble, his neat formalwear already covered in dust. He raised his head, his bloodshot eyes staring upward.
"That is... Tot Musica... the Demon King of Songs. Its origins are very complicated..."
"Give me the short version!"
"It was sealed inside a musical score. That score should have been buried deep underground in a forbidden area. I have no idea how it ended up in Uta's hands.
And she just happens to be a user of the Sing-Sing Fruit, so she summoned this thing.
This monster exists in two places at the same time: the real world beneath our feet, and Uta's sing-sing world. Only by attacking it simultaneously in both worlds can we effectively..."
Gordon didn't know who had sealed this thing back then, or why it had remained in Elegia all this time.
But as for how to deal with the Demon King of Songs once it appeared, Gordon had heard about that through the traditions passed down in Elegia. Perhaps whoever had sealed it back then had also worried that if it ever broke free in the future, people would have no way to deal with it.
"Skip the historical background. We don't have time for stories right now. How do we get into that mental world?"
Bang! Bang!
Nearby, Beckman raised his pistol and fired at the Demon King of Songs in midair. Even if he couldn't inflict any effective damage, doing so could at least slow down the destruction it was causing.
"In theory... only the user of the Sing-Sing Fruit can bring people inside..."
When the Sing-Sing Fruit user activated their ability, the songs they sang carried a hypnotic effect that could draw another person's consciousness into the Sing-Sing Fruit's mental world, also known as the Sing-Sing world.
But Uta was clearly incapable of doing that now. The Demon King of Songs in the sky was still venting its rage after being sealed away. The piano keys along its arms seemed to be pressed as they swung, sending tangible sound waves exploding outward in rings.
Wherever they passed, the glass in buildings instantly shattered into powder, while the powerful shock waves continuously destroyed houses.
"Are you people just going to stand there and watch me do all the work by myself?! If you can stall that thing, then go stall it! If you can't, then come help me rescue people!"
Hermes flashed past nearby, now resembling a huge white van.
You could never know just how many people might come pouring out of a van parked on the roadside, and Hermes had no idea how many people he had already carried away either.
But as far as Hermes was concerned, the Red-Hair crew were the ones responsible for causing this disaster. Seeing how "leisurely" they were acting, he naturally wasn't going to be polite.
"Shanks..."
"It's right. Yasopp, Lucky Roux! You guys go help rescue the civilians! The rest of us will hold it off here!"
When Nanamo sent Hermes to rescue people, she herself had also been fighting the unknown creature, which had reduced the pressure on everyone here considerably.
As he spoke, Shanks raised his right arm, Gryphon's edge gleaming coldly beneath the moonlight.
With the most straightforward horizontal slash imaginable, a razor-sharp blade of light crossed over a hundred meters and struck the Demon King squarely on the left shoulder.
"Clang!"
The sound of metal striking metal echoed through the sky. The Demon King of Songs was knocked slightly sideways, then noticed Shanks below. It seemed to focus its rage on him, bringing its enormous arm down toward Shanks.
Shanks didn't dodge. With a twist of his wrist, Gryphon swept upward at an extremely tricky angle.
The tremendous impact sent him sliding backward an unknown distance, the soles of his boots plowing two deep trenches through the packed earth, but he forcibly took the blow head-on.
"We have three options."
Beckman tossed away the cigarette butt in his hand and reloaded his weapon, then looked solemnly at the people beside him.
"First, attack both worlds simultaneously, but we can't enter the mental world. Second, wake Uta up and have her kick the monster out herself, but she's currently in a deep coma. Third... stall until she runs out of stamina."
"No. Actually, we can try the first method, though I don't know if it'll work."
Just as Beckman and the others were preparing to simply drag the fight out, a man in black walked out beside Nanamo.
"Why are you over here?"
"Most of the refugees from the disaster's core area have already been evacuated. My ability might be able to help here. The Sing-Sing Fruit's ability lets people enter that world through sleep.
My ability can open the world of dreams. If the two are connected, then we can enter that mental world."
Looking up at the Demon King of Songs, Alber briefly explained his ability, turning an impossible plan into a possible one.
On this trip with Nanamo, Alber was the only follower besides Hermes. He had been helping Hermes with the rescue efforts until just now, and the moment he was free, he immediately came over here.
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