Chapter 144

A brisk night wind blew past, and the moon peeked its face from between the clouds. The way its light shone off Lyrule’s damp golden hair made her appear as a lunar nymph. Captivated, Tsukasa brought his face to hers… …and their silhouettes joined. A gleam was born in that moment, a single pearl. A tear formed in the corner of Lyrule’s eye as she gave Tsukasa a delightedly bashful look. “You know… I just realized something. I understand why you were so sure of our victory now.” “Right?” Tsukasa returned her smile with one of his own, then looked out at the construction, still ongoing. When he spoke next, his voice rang with conviction. “We’re going to win. There’s something Keine doesn’t know. She doesn’t know the strength of what she’s up against, and it’s time we show her.” Shortly before the world fair preparations in Elm reached their climax, right as summer approached its hottest days, there was…an incident over in the empire. A fight broke out. Perhaps calling it a “fight” was a bit much, as the participants were a pair of young girls, and they only exchanged two or three slaps each, but the scale of the injuries wasn’t the issue. It was that they’d engaged in violence at all. Under Lindworm’s regime, that sort of thing shouldn’t have been possible. Keine had stripped all Freyjagardian citizens of their greed and given them good hearts. So how? Lindworm was the first to learn of the incident thanks to his scrying magic, and after he teleported in and admonished the girls, he called Keine over to speak with the guilty parties and learn what had happened. The sight of the girls’ faces sent a shock through the prodigy physician. One of the parties involved was the girl whose bracelet Keine had complimented earlier. Apparently, she’d been spending time with a friend, and the pair had gotten into a disagreement over that very bracelet. Both had been given similar stone trinkets, and they’d argued about whose was prettier. As it happened, giving stone accessories as presents had come into style in the empire since Lindworm confiscated all treasure made from precious metals. The girl’s brother had probably given her the bracelet after hearing about the trend, and the girl’s friend had been given a bracelet by her sister in much the same way. The two had chatted normally until the topic of their bracelets came up. Initially, they complimented the other’s accessory, but before long, the conversation shifted to being about whose was prettier, and neither side was willing to back down. Both insisted theirs was better because their sibling made it with love. The discussion quickly got heated, and they came to blows, forcing the emperor to step in. Keine was flabbergasted. Why were two children comparing themselves and fighting after she’d removed their greed? This marked the fourth such incident. The first three anomalies were people so distinguished that, like Keine, they’d been dubbed High School Prodigies. On some level, it almost made sense that nonstandard irregularities would pop up. This time, though, it was just a pair of ordinary girls. How in the world had they regained so much greed that they were willing to hurt people? Perhaps Keine had made some oversight when applying her surgery. The possibility sent a shock through her and wounded her self-confidence. Unfortunately, the incident was just the tip of the iceberg. After the girls’ case, similar occurrences began happening across the empire. It started with quarrels over comparisons, like in the case of the girls, then escalated from fights over pretty stones all the way to attempted murders. Eventually, they happened so frequently that Keine and the emperor were overwhelmed dealing with it all. They decided to ban accessories, no matter how simple. On top of that, they also implemented strict rules on what people could wear based on their age and gender. The idea was that by eliminating all individuality, the people would have nothing to squabble over. However, their efforts were in vain. Even with everyone wearing the same clothes, people discriminated based on how others wore them, and when Lindworm and Keine regulated that, too, people began renovating their houses, growing flowers in their gardens, thinking up new ways to wear their hair, and putting extra effort into their daily cooking. The people of the empire found new ways to embellish the minimalist lifestyles they’d been so satisfied with. That process was breeding disparities within their communities. People were seeking betterment, envying betterment, and growing jealous of betterment. All of those were urges that stemmed from greed. It was half a year after Lindworm had instituted his system in the empire, and things had begun coming apart at the seams. The question was, why? Keine had failed to get rid of their greed, and realizing that fact caused her to sink deeper and deeper into desperation. “~~~~~~! Why? Why?!” She swept all the medicine off the desk in her room in Drachen and clutched at her head. Her eyes burned with rage and humiliation, and her bedside manner smile was gone from her face. From how disheveled her hair was, it was clear it hadn’t seen a comb in some time. Day after day, more issues with greed appeared. Handling them wasn’t particularly difficult, but assuming her treatment had worked correctly, they shouldn’t have been occurring in the first place, and the discrepancy wore on her psyche. Aoi had been helping Keine through it all, and seeing her so distressed brought a thought to mind. The last time I saw her this distressed…was just after the incident, that it was. She thought back to when they’d first met. Aoi had just entered middle school. Even back then, she’d already started charging across battlefields to protect the powerless. She’d heard the rumors of a girl who worked in war zones as she did but with medicine instead of a sword. Then one day, Aoi got word that terrorists had attacked the girl’s infirmary camp. The goal of the raid was to steal pharmaceuticals and rations, but it was also to kidnap medical personnel to use as hostages. Thankfully, that meant the terrorists wouldn’t simply go and kill everyone. Aoi rushed to the scene to lend aid. Upon arrival, she saw something unusual. Keine Kanzaki, armed with no weapon of her own, grabbed at the brawny-armed soldiers with her small hands. “You took their homes! You took their country! Now you’re taking their lives, too?! We’d finally saved them! They were finally going to be okay! What is it you want so badly you’re willing to go to such lengths to get it?!” Her eyes were open so wide that they tore at the corners, causing tears of blood to trickle down her face as she raged. Behind her, there was an unfathomably tall pile of burnt corpses. They had to be the medical camp’s patients. Refugees were worthless as hostages, so with no reason to take them alive, the terrorists had doused them in oil and burned them to death. Unsurprisingly, a group of terrorists willing to commit an act that barbaric weren’t about to let a young girl lash out at them unscathed. One of them struck Keine with his rifle and sent her flying. Others descended on her quickly, pinned her to the ground, and tore at her white gown. “Stop right there, brutes!” Their attention was locked on the girl before them, so they’d failed to notice Aoi moving in. That error proved fatal. Aoi dispatched the entire thirty-man cell and saved Keine and the other medics. However, the infirmary camp was still in ruin, and many of the surviving doctors were wounded. There was no way they’d be able to continue the operation. The head medic decided they would evacuate, and he ordered his surviving colleagues to gather up what supplies and equipment had survived the attack. As all that was going on, Keine sat down alone off to the side and stared up vacantly at the sky. The head medic claimed she was in shock. He believed it was best for the adult men to give her some space. Aoi was a girl of about the same age, so the head medic asked her to speak with Keine instead. Aoi nodded and headed over. To the present day, Aoi still vividly remembered what happened next. She’d never forget the disquieting emotion she’d witnessed. “I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him.” Keine wasn’t in a shocked daze. Rather, she repeated the same words over and over with cracked lips and a hoarse throat like a curse. “Worry not. I have slain them, that I have.” Aoi initially assumed Keine spoke of the terrorists. However… “Not them.” …Keine quickly corrected her and rose to her feet. “They were sick. They’re poor victims so altered by the sickness called greed that they’ve lost sight of their ability to love others. They’re not to blame. God’s the one at fault. He gave humanity its greed! “That I will not abide! How dare our incompetent creator fail to give us perfect hearts and bodies? I will grant all the things you failed to provide! I will build them perfect bodies! I will build them perfect hearts! I will give them everything you didn’t! Then we’ll finally have no more need of you!!” Tears of blood rolled down Keine’s face as she stretched her hand to the sky. The sun shined down on the ground through a sandstorm, and Keine grabbed hold of it tightly as she spoke… “Mark my words—I will kill you if it’s the last thing I do!!” …and swore an oath to the heavens. It wasn’t just the people around her or the helpless people suffering from persecution. It was every person living in their era. Keine intended to take them all, saints and sinners alike, and save them in God’s place. Aoi realized how perilous a goal that was. She knew that it was too grand an ideal for a single person to shoulder, and that didn’t change even as the two girls got older. If anything, she was more concerned for Keine now. The thing was, Keine was gifted with the overwhelming amount of talent necessary to make her absurd dream into a reality. She’d honed her medical skills on the battlefield, she’d finally developed a technique to heal people of their greed, and now she genuinely intended to usurp God. Seeing her like that…caused Aoi no end of worry. People who flew the highest were too often the ones with the longest falls. Keine had tried to grasp the heavens, and when her dream got shattered through no fault of her own, Aoi worried that she wouldn’t be able to take it. Keine was kinder than anyone else, and that gentle spirit drove her to strive for a goal beyond human limit. Her love was so unbearably strong it threatened to crush her. Oh… “What you’re trying to do isn’t going to work, Keine.” Aoi realized why Tsukasa, who knew that he was only an ordinary man and hated making definitive judgments about things, had spoken with such conviction. Tsukasa, m’lord… You understood all along, that you did. He knew how fundamentally wrong Keine’s ideals were. It was a lot to take in. Sure enough, there was no way Keine could succeed. Aoi hung her head and smiled grimly at her belated revelation. “Aoi.” “!” Upon hearing her name, the prodigy swordmaster looked up. “I have a new procedure I’d like to try, so would you mind bringing me…let’s say four of the patients we have in temporary confinement? I need to heal their sickness.” Keine’s voice was calm, but that was the only thing about her that was. Her eyes were open far too wide, and blood seeped from her torn canthi. It was that same expression she’d worn when Aoi first met her, the one that made it look like she was on the verge of breaking down. How would Keine react if Aoi pointed out the error she’d noticed? It might be enough to break Keine for good. I was given a task. Tsukasa had asked Aoi to look after Keine for him. She was probably the only person in the world capable of protecting her. And so… “That won’t be necessary, that it won’t.” Aoi shrugged off her clothes, stripped to the waist, and gave Keine a smile. “If you have need of a test subject, then use me. I am your accomplice, Keine, m’lady.” Then… After summer passed, autumn deepened, and the air turned chilly, Lindworm received an invitation to the world fair.