Chapter 89

Dang, she’s sharp. By and large, I can’t tell one alcoholic drink from the next. I’m just drinking ’cause it looks cool. “It’s not like I hate it or anything.” Alpha giggles. “You really do, don’t you?” “Thank you for waiting. Here’s your vodka martini,” Chi announces. Her hands are still trembling as she sets the cocktail in front of me. She’s getting more jittery by the moment. She must really be a pro. “I’ll take a Manhattan,” Alpha says. “Coming right up.” Alpha’s order, the Manhattan, is a whiskey-based cocktail. The problem is, there’s no good reason for whiskey to even exist here. “So you finished re-creating whiskey,” I say, feigning confidence to bait her into giving up information. “It certainly took us long enough, but yes. We haven’t started selling it, but once we do, we believe it’ll command a considerable price. The Velgaltan noble we had taste-test said he would value it at twenty million zeni a bottle.” “I—I see…” I knew it. I never should have gotten carried away and bragged to them about how much I knew about distilled spirits. “We couldn’t have done it without your knowledge,” Alpha adds. “Uh-huh…” You can say that again. I’m so frustrated, I down my entire vodka martini in a single gulp. “How was it?” “Not bad.” Yep, that sure tasted like alcohol. Alpha smiles. “Heh-heh…” “What’s so funny?” “Oh, nothing. I’m just pleased.” “About what?” “That suit. You’re finally wearing it.” “Ah, right.” “I ordered that specially. It’s made of blackworm silk.” “Ooh…” Blackworms are like the silkworms from my old world, only they’re massive, violent, and poisonous to boot. It takes a master hunter to harvest their silk, a fact that’s reflected in its price tag. “You know, I forgive you for breaking your promise,” she says as she gazes in delight at me in my suit. I’m gonna be honest: I have no idea what promise she’s talking about. “Thank you for waiting. Here’s your Manhattan.” “Much appreciated.” Seems like Alpha’s in a good mood today. She takes a sip of her Manhattan and nods. “Something a little more aged would have suited it better, but this isn’t bad.” She sets down the glass and looks back at me. “Now, you can’t stand alcohol, yet you came to the bar anyway. Did something happen?” “Huh? Nah, nothing special. I just found the membership card lying in my room.” “Ah, and you were concerned about being surveilled. In this bar, we can speak freely. There’s no one here at the moment but the initiated.” All of a sudden, she gets dead serious. In other words, she’s decided to play along with my little spy act. “Good to know. How’d that one mission go?” “Ah, the mission,” she says, her expression still just as serious. “I listed the details on what happened in Oriana in my last report.” “Right, the report. I read that in the three seconds between completing one mission and starting the next.” The Shadow Garden sends me a huge number of reports on a regular basis. That said, they’re all written in some ancient script I can’t read, so I always just incinerate the reports as soon as I get them. “Three seconds? Are you accelerating your brain’s processing speed or something?” “Heh…” I silently raise my glass to my lips. “Ah, it’s a technique you can’t talk about yet. I can tell it must require a profound degree of talent. Between the burden it would have to place on your brain and the risks it would carry if things went wrong… I agree, we’re not equipped to handle something like that. I will say, though, that we’ve been dutifully training in accordance with your instructions. When we’re ready, please do teach it to us.” “I’ll be expecting great things from you.” “I won’t let you down. I swear it on my life!” “And how’s that one mission going?” “Everything is proceeding smoothly. Rose Oriana has made up her mind to serve as the queen and fight.” “Just as originally planned, then.” “You must have foreseen this conclusion the moment you first made contact with her. You were so fixated on her, I started to get a little jealous,” Alpha jokes. “She’s a necessary piece in the plan.” “I see that now. We need her in order to drag them out into the light.” “Into the light?” “What’s the matter?” “No, it’s nothing. I was just examining the situation from all sides and envisioning the worst possible outcome the near future might bring.” “You really do pay attention to every possibility, don’t you? I just wish you would pay a little more attention to the rest of… No, it’s nothing.” She starts to say something but stops herself. “You’ve never changed. All this time, you’ve been chasing a giant dream. It’s too big a dream for the rest of us to grasp more than a fragment of…but the preparations are finally complete, aren’t they?” “If you cast your gaze to the horizon, we’ve only taken the very first step.” “I understand that. With the Shadow Garden’s funds and technology, we can reshape the Oriana Kingdom. You can leave that part to us. We have everything going smoothly at the moment.” “I see. If things are going smoothly, then I leave it in your hands.” “Ah, and one other thing. We updated the ancient script cipher.” Alpha hands me a few sheets of paper. I can’t help but grimace when I see how absolutely covered they are in ancient script that I can’t make heads or tails of. “That there is the decoder sheet, but perhaps the cipher was too simple for you,” she tells me. “Uh-huh…” This is a disaster. My eyes hurt just looking at this thing. “I’ll take an apple juice,” I say as I stow the papers in my pocket. Chi’s eyes widen in surprise. “Huh? Oh, of course. One apple juice, coming right up.” “Moving on: We have the incident at Midgar Academy. I received a mission report from Zeta. Though it certainly took her long enough to get it to me,” Alpha says with a sigh. “I swear, that girl wouldn’t know a deadline if it hit her in the face. Would you mind having a word with her?” “She’s got her own way of doing things.” “You really have to stop spoiling her. Still, it was thanks to her that we managed to wipe out the Fenrir sect.” “Ah yes. The Fenrir sect. Of course.” “She rooted out their hideouts and escape routes ahead of time. Once you beat Fenrir, it took her less than half a day to annihilate them. She was almost too effective.” “I see.” I guess she’s talking about those terrorists. “Because of the situation in Oriana, we had barely any personnel on hand,” Alpha continues. “I find it hard to believe they managed to take out the entire Fenrir sect in half a day with just Zeta, Victoria, and a handful of Numbers. Still, this is Zeta we’re talking about, so I imagine there are a lot of details that didn’t make it into her report.” She heaves another big sigh. “Can you please talk to her? And tell her to take her reports seriously? That, and to avoid taking risks she doesn’t need to.” “Yeah.” “Make sure you do it, okay?” “Yeah…” “Thank you for waiting,” says Chi. “Here’s your apple juice.” “Yeah!” This really hits the spot. They used some good apples in this stuff. “Zeta handled the cleanup, too,” Alpha explains. “She did a good job covering our tracks, and the Cult of Diablos did the same thing with their Knight Order insiders. That’s why, officially, the whole thing is being treated as a terrorist attack.” “Going with the same story as always, I see.” “Then there’s the matter of Claire’s coma. Zeta’s report wasn’t particularly informative. We may want to examine her again…” “Nah, it’s fine. Let her sleep.” At this point, it’s pretty much a given that she’s going to have to repeat a year, so there’s no point waking her up a second sooner than we have to. “But—” “I can handle the situation with my sister.” Alpha gives me a small smile. “Very well. I can tell you’re worried about her, too.” “Oh, right, speaking of the terrorist attack…” I think back to what I heard Christina talking about in the classroom earlier. “Our student council vice president, Eliza, took advantage of the chaos to attack other students.” “Eliza… Ah, from that major aristocrat family.” “Yeah, that one. The Knight Order was investigating her crimes, but it sounds like she’s going to be found innocent.” “Do you want her to be found guilty? I’m sure we could—” “Nah, that’s not what I’m asking. The ruling itself doesn’t actually matter. It’s just, there was a bunch of evidence and testimonies, so the fact that she’s just walking makes me feel a little…” …jealous, honestly. “That’s fair. You’re right: The corruption in Midgar runs deep. The nation is bigger than Oriana, but that just means the corruption is even more ingrained. And Eliza Despoht’s father, Marquis Brad Despoht, is the leader of a faction that symbolizes that rot.” “Hmm.” “The faction is called the Thirteen Nightblades. As the name suggests, it’s a secret society of thirteen of the Midgar Kingdom’s movers and shakers. People call them Midgar’s rulers in shadow, and they have strong ties to the Cult of Diablos and other criminal organizations. Brad Despoht must have been the one who gave the order to have Eliza cleared of all charges.” “Rulers in shadow, you say…” Alpha pulls out a sheet of paper with a portrait and a bio on it. “In all likelihood, this is the man who handled all the specifics, Earl Shoddi Goodz. He’s the lowest-ranking member of the Nightblades, a close confidante of Brad Despoht, and a formidable prosecutor. He’s the man in charge of handling cases brought against the nobility. He’s going to avoid prosecuting and claim the evidence wasn’t strong enough.” So this is Shoddi Goodz, huh? He looks evil as sin. While we’re here, I have Alpha give me a look at the other twelve bios as well. “Even with all the eyewitness accounts and evidence?” I ask. “This happens quite frequently. As soon as he becomes involved, everything gets swept under the rug.” “You don’t say.” “And it isn’t just Shoddi Goodz, either. The other Nightblades corrupt Midgar by abusing their authority as well. Due to their ties to the Cult, nobody can lay a finger on them, and they’ve only grown more arrogant over time.” “Those Thirteen Nightblades sound like a lucky…I mean, an evil bunch of dudes.” “We plan to deal with them eventually, but we have our hands full rebuilding Oriana at the moment. For now, we’re just letting them be.” “I see…” So this is what big shot fantasy-world nobles are capable of, huh? They’re rulers in shadow who can get away with anything. I chug my apple juice and rise to my feet. “I just got a fantastic idea. Thanks, Alpha.” “You look excited. What are you thinking?” “You’ll find out soon enough.” “All right. Well, if you need help, you know where to find me,” Alpha replies, then fades into mist and vanishes. Damn, girl. That was one slick way to make an exit. “You can put the drinks on my tab,” I tell Chi. With that, I mask my presence and vanish into the dark of the night as well. Earl Shoddi Goodz looks up with a start and gazes out his window. Outside, he sees the Midgar nightscape illuminated by the city’s streetlamps. He thinks he senses someone watching him, but… “Must be imagining things,” he murmurs as he turns back to his paperwork. The fire in his hearth crackles, and his fountain pen glides across the paper. The night is quiet. Goodz sets down his fountain pen and takes a sip of his cold coffee. “It tastes exquisite, even cold. Mitsugoshi’s top-grade beans are really something else.” He nods several times in satisfaction, then turns his gaze back to the documents on his desk. On them, they have the details of the events of the Eliza Despoht incident, the costs associated with the cover-up, and a list of people they need to buy off or silence. It looks like he’s going to be able to get her off the hook, but it was by no means an easy thing to do. There were too many witnesses, and the fact that a royal—Alexia Midgar—and a major aristocrat—Christina Hope—number among their ranks is especially problematic. He had to make a lot of promises to a lot of people in order to get their testimonies thrown out. Goodz stands up and stares out the window. His reflection in the glass is that of a tired, middle-aged man with a face like a toad’s. “I’ll be expecting my due compensation for this, Mr. Despoht.” The work he’s been doing has been backbreaking, and there are still some people who need to be eliminated. That minor noble witness Kanade is liable to be a problem if she isn’t dealt with. However, Goodz’s specialty lies in paperwork and greasing palms. Things will go smoother if he leaves the ugly business to one of the other Nightblades. “That will be nice, though. Being at the bottom of the Nightblades’ pecking order is starting to get old. This should give me the leverage I need to obtain a more respectable position.” Despite his appearance, Goodz is still in his thirties. He joined the Thirteen Nightblades in his late father’s stead, but due to his relative youth, the others always force the work they don’t want onto him. There are a lot of mysteries surrounding his father’s death. It was written off as an accident, but Goodz hasn’t forgotten the stab wound that was in his father’s back. “The truth is lost in the darkness. As is its wont.” At the end of the day, the incident with Eliza and the incident with his father are the same. Goodz knows all too well what happens to those who try to uncover the darkness’s secrets. He steps away from the window and rings the bell on his desk to summon a servant. All he needs to do now is seal up the documents and send them off to Marquis Despoht… “…Hmm?” Suddenly, he senses someone’s gaze and looks up. His study appears the same as always. There’s no reason for anyone to be there but him. And yet, he’s joined by a clown. The clown sits on his sofa staring at him. The light from the fireplace reveals that the intruder is drenched in blood. “Wh-who the hell are you? How long have you been there?!” Goodz immediately rings the bell again. “Someone, get in here!! Get rid of this interloper!!” The bell’s tinny ring reverberates through the quiet night. “Is there no one here?!” Goodz’s roar and the sound of the bell echo out futilely. The bloody clown doesn’t move. It simply sits there watching Goodz panic. “Why is no one coming, dammit?!” It doesn’t make sense. Plenty of time has passed since he first rang the bell. His guards should be here by now. Yet the night is silent. No…it’s too silent. “You didn’t…” The bell slips from Goodz’s hand and tumbles to the floor. The clown slowly rises to its feet. The blood dripping from its hands is fresh, and its footsteps sound strangely squelchy. There are bloody footprints soiling Goodz’s expensive rug. “What did you do to my staff…?” The bloody clown doesn’t answer. It just keeps on staring at Goodz from beneath its crescent-grin mask. “Eek…!” Goodz lets out a small scream and inches backward. The clown closes in on him. Squelch. Squelch. “Wh-who are you? Why are you coming after me? You really think you’re going to get away with attacking me?!” No reply from the clown. It just slowly advances, its sticky footsteps serving to mock Goodz for his false confidence. Suddenly, Goodz thinks back to the look on his father’s dead face. “No… It can’t be… Are you here to eliminate me?! A-after all I’ve done for the Nightblades, they’re just going to throw me by the wayside?!” Squelch. The footsteps stop. The bloody clown smiles beneath its mask. “So that’s what’s happening… You’re going to kill me just like you killed my father…” With another set of squelches, the footsteps resume. They’re getting faster. Fast enough for the clown to enter grabbing range… “Eek… Get away, GET AWAYYYYYYYYY!!” Goodz hurls his coffee cup at the clown. It shatters against the clown’s mask, splattering it with dark liquid. Then Goodz turns around and runs. He might not look it, but his grades back at the Academy for Dark Knights were stellar. He’s put on some weight and let himself go a bit, but he’s still far faster than the average person. He reaches the room’s door in a blink and throws it open. Now all he needs to do is flee to the Knight Order. For a moment, he feels hope. He’s going to make it. “Wha—? AHHHHHHH!” However, someone on the other side of the door knocks him down. “Wh-what are you doing?! Get out of the way!” He desperately flounders his way across the ground. Then, when he notices he’s getting covered with blood, he realizes what it was he tripped over. “Wait, you’re…my security team…” It was the dead bodies of his guards. They weren’t the nicest men around, but he paid top zeni to fill their ranks with outstandingly talented dark knights. Now all those knights have been brutally slaughtered. “Eek… AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” Goodz kicks the bodies aside as he scrambles forward. The squelching sound comes right up to his ears. “No…” He looks up and finds the masked clown staring down at him. “No, no…” In its hand, the clown is holding a single playing card. “Don’t, you can’t—” With a thunk, the playing card impales his forehead. Goodz’s eyes go wide in stark disbelief as he reaches up to touch the card embedded in his brow. “No…” Then he slowly keels over backward. The clown looks down at the blood pooling on the floor. “One down…” Its voice echoes through the still night.