Made in Abyss Chapter 034

Counterattack is the thirty-fourth chapter of the Made in Abyss manga series.

Synopsis
The Umbra Hand that Riko and Nanachi were following wanders off aimlessly. Reg's Communication Device no longer seems to be working, but Nanachi has faith in him. Meinya suddenly appears and licks Riko's face, then runs through the base. Riko thinks they should follow and Meinya leads them to, what Nanachi calls, the "processing room".

Nanachi reveals the awful process: from the selected children, the inside of the head, the upper half of the spine, and any organs needed to sustain life are preserved. Everything else is scraped away while they still live. What remains is stuffed into Cartridges, and manipulated by drugs that stimulate ecstasy and terror. These Cartridges are carried by Bondrewd, and they take the brunt of The Curse of the Abyss in his place. Nanachi admits that they carried out some of these operations themself, and is disgusted that they did so.

Bondrewd suddenly enters the room and invites Nanachi to return to him. Nanachi guesses that Bondrewd plans to turn Prushka into a Cartridge, and Riko begs him not to. Bondrewd assures her that Prushka is sleeping and will be released, and says that the raw materials for the Relic that White Whistles are cut from (Life-Reverberating Stones), are humans. Before the Ido Front was rebuilt, it was a ritual site used for such sacrifices, as the only way to reach the 6th Layer, is to essentially yield to the Abyss. Bondrewd's admits that his initial assumption had been that Riko's life was intended to be used for the ritual.

The stones can only be made from someone with a firm resolve to give all for the intended user. Riko determines that Bondrewd used his original body to make his own White Whistle, which he confirms. Riko angrily tells him to use himself as Cartridges instead of others, but Bondrewd says that since he sacrificed his body, he judged himself to no longer be human. Suddenly, Reg bursts violently into the room, but is barely recognizable and seems more like a wild animal. He ignores Nanachi's warnings and attacks Bondrewd head-on.

Meinya runs off and Riko follows it. Bondrewd recognizes that Reg has absorbed the power plant's reserves, and desires to see the true strength of an Abyss treasure. Bondrewd uses Gangway, which fires multiple beams of light from his helmet, but Reg deflects the beams. Bondrewd then uses Sparagmos and appears to pierces Reg, but Reg keeps moving and damages Bondrewd's mask. Bondrewd regrets having cut off Reg's arm, because now he desires Reg's body intact.

Adapted To

 * Made in Abyss Movie 3: Dawn of the Deep Soul

Character Appearances

 * Bondrewd
 * Meinya
 * Nanachi
 * Reg
 * Riko
 * Umbra Hands

Bestiary Indexing

 * Meinastilim