Recently, Aureatia’s Industrial Ministry underwent a large-scale organizational restructuring. Even before this, with former head Fourth Minister Kaete the Round Table’s downfall due to suspicions of foul play during the sixth match and plans for an insurrection, about half of the leading bureaucrats were headhunted by the other Twenty-Nine Officials, and the remaining ministry staff had just finished cutting back the ministry’s scale and reorganizing operations. Many among the staff were arrested as well for being sycophants to Kaete as he schemed to rebel against the current regime—and were responsible for researching, maintaining, and smuggling Beyond weaponry. That same Kaete was suddenly reinstated among the Twenty-Nine Officials. While the organizational structure of Aureatia as a whole, not just the Industrial Ministry, was going through unavoidable changes due to the events of the grand coup attempt and the death of Rosclay the Absolute, Kaete’s reinstatement was a puzzling personnel move, even when considering all the suspicions of foul play in the sixth match had been lifted. Kaete’s reinstatement to the Twenty-Nine Officials was essentially lending him the position in name only. Kaete was only a special adviser, with the leadership of the Industrial Ministry not included with his reinstatement—and subjected to constant surveillance. Given that he didn’t have any directorial duties, his office was very plain and simple. Reusing a maintenance worker station that had sat empty after personnel cuts, the interior had merely been adjusted to fit its new purpose. Kaete paced around the windowless room looking irritated. The assignment of this office wasn’t what had incited this anger. Kaete—nay, all of Aureatia was confronted right now with a far more threatening reality. Kia the World Word… No, it wasn’t only her. Mestelexil’s learning ability was completely beyond my calculations! I can’t believe he was able to use such a method of attack… Slaying the omnipotent. Common sense dictated it impossible, yet Mestelexil thoroughly carried out this order. Every single attack he threw at her, no matter what combination of Beyond weaponry, failed to have any effect on Kia the World Word whatsoever, even after outwitting her complete automatic defenses, yet in the very end, Mestelexil had used an attack of words to finally destroy Kia. Mestelexil had accomplished his mission. His method was beyond what Kaete could have imagined, including all the tactics he used up to that point as well. However, going off the objective of fundamentally eliminating the threats to Aureatia and the Queen, everything had led in the worst direction possible. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” A subunit, a small round body reminiscent of Mestelexil’s head with three legs growing out of it, ran around the room laughing. It was chasing around an avian drone also constructed out of his own Word Arts. Kaete thought it must have been nice to ignore Kaete’s worries and be so carefree. What is going to happen to us? At this stage, Aureatia could no longer shift the responsibility onto Kaete or Mestelexil and pretend it never happened. Even the other Twenty-Nine Officials weren’t dimwitted enough to think that would solve the problem. Mestelexil’s fighting strength was indispensable to suppressing Kia, or any other threat. However, in the absolutely worst-case scenario…there’s a chance Mestelexil will be disposed of, too. Even omnipotence itself was unable to kill Mestelexil. That had been proven. However, Kaete couldn’t say with certainty that Aureatia wouldn’t use some method outside of Kaete’s estimations against Mestelexil. Uhak the Silent, for example, originally meant to be employed against Kia, or the mysterious unknown parent unit in Obsidian Eyes, the vampire capable of infecting others instantly through even the slightest scratch. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Kaete! Wh-who is…my next opponent?!” “Pipe down… I’m thinking.” With any political foundation he once had now gone, Mestelexil was now the only card Kaete had to play. Mestelexil was a perfected combat life-form, but Kaete was the only one who could protect him politically from the nation-state of Aureatia. Kaete needed consider what to do if the worst situation ever came about. If we’re going to get done in eventually, then the only choice…is to take down Aureatia itself. The batch of weapons he had previously produced in the Industrial Ministry had all been taken away, and he didn’t have a single soldier under his command. However, as long as Mestelexil was with him, he alone would have been able to bring the Industrial Ministry and the royal palace under control in the blink of an eye. The strategy may have been nothing but a childish fantasy, including the idea that he and Kiyazuna would come out unharmed when it was all over, but taking the initiative to attack Aureatia and survive seemed far more realistic than the prospect of defeating Kia the World Word and living to tell the tale had first sounded. They may be a flock of imbeciles, but I doubt they’re so soft that gaining control of the Queen would let me seize power… But now the situation has changed. Rosclay is dead. If push comes to shove— The white noise of the radzio receiver provided to Kaete interrupted his train of thought. On the other end of the line was Hidow the Clamp. <Keate! Emergency, we’re requesting your presence! Can you get to the Central Assembly Hall?!> “Tell me why. You think some vague request will get me to go anywhere?” <I don’t got the time to deal with that crap of yours, got it?! The palace’s been destroyed! Kia the World Word did it! The main hall’s gone!> “…The palace?” Though he looked at the authority of the Kingdom and the value of the Queen with scorn more than anything else, Kaete found himself speechless. Even Kyaliga the Music Reed’s assault on the royal palace only happened because he had been allowed to clear the moat around the palace grounds. The main hall of the royal palace was at the very center of the palace grounds and served as Queen Sephite’s residence. He should not have been hearing the end results that the main hall had been destroyed instead of a report that palace grounds had fallen. Had Aureatia severed the delicate bond that had barely managed to keep this monster in check? The person in charge of this incident summoned everyone who could immediately jump into action, including the commander on the scene. It was Aureatia’s Twelfth Minister, Hidow the Clamp, who had been tasked with jurisdiction over the original royal palace assault. Previously dismissed once during the turmoil of the Sixways Exhibition, following the large-scale coup, he had returned to his post in charge of the royal palace assault case. On the surface, his circumstances were the same as Kaete’s own. However, his commanding authority was above Kaete’s—a fact that Kaete was terribly loath to accept. “We’re still waiting for a few people, but let’s get started.” Hidow didn’t even introduce himself to everyone gathered in the conference room. This stemmed less from his usual rudeness and more from his panic that there wasn’t a second to waste. “I’ll explain the situation again. Kia the World Word tore down the whole main hall at the royal palace. The damages include all the rooms in the Hall of Mirrors on the second floor of the west wing. Everything was blasted away in a big sphere shape. The hunting storehouses below it are in a catastrophic state, too, obviously. The human casualties are three lightly wounded chamberlains. Kia purposefully revealed herself to them and showed them part of the destruction.” “Was her goal to send out a warning—or a threat?” a member of the Police Agency raised their hand and asked. “That’s right. She coulda done all this without ever showing herself if she wanted, and she coulda gotten the chamberlains wrapped up in all the destruction, too. Heck, she coulda gone after the Queen herself and killed her on the spot. Best to assume that she did all this destruction in the most conspicuous and most heinous way because she wanted to declare war on all of us. She said something similar to the chamberlains, too,” Hidow continued flatly. “‘You all killed Elea.’” Just how much rage had originally been in those words? A young girl of just fourteen years old had declared war against the largest kingdom in the land. “‘You’re going to pay for this.’” A silence took hold of the conference room. Kia wasn’t trying to eradicate everything and end it all at once. She was attempting to instill a fear in Aureatia worthy of the hatred she felt in her heart. …Damn emotional brat. Scowling at the stillness in the room, Kaete was more upset at their enemy’s illogical actions than anything else. With both Kia the World Word and Kiyazuna the Axle, the more exceptional and unparalleled the strong were, for some reason, the more they enjoyed this self-satisfactory revenge. The powerful believed, and never questioned, that they had the right to choose how situations were resolved. If she had just forced us to admit defeat from the start, we could’ve graciously accepted it all. By pressuring us but still giving us room to resist, our only option left’s to fight to the last. Kaete picked up a note of anger more than fear in Hidow’s tone as he answered the question. As irritating as it was, it appeared Hidow felt similarly to Kaete on the matter. “Kia the World Word has been designated a self-proclaimed demon king. We’ll mobilize as many as possible of the hero candidates who can still fight and have them try to subjugate the World Word, but those with straightforward fighting capabilities will be benched for now. The central figures in this operation are Uhak the Silent and Kuze the Passing Calamity. The detailed arrangements are confidential, but they’ve already been sent into action. I want all of you to prevent any expected damages and handle everything without causing confusion on the scene.” Erasure and instant death, is it? At this stage, they were the only concepts capable of killing an omnipotent. Given that Mestelexil’s all-out attacks didn’t get the job done, Psianop the Inexhaustive Stagnation and Shalk the Sound Slicer were out of the question, and even if they did bring Mele the Horizon’s Roar into battle, any sort of subjugation through raw power was going to be impossible. After sharing the information on the situation and giving directives on the most important matters, everyone else hastily rose up from their seats while Kaete didn’t move, his arms crossed. “Do you have a serious chance here?” Kaete asked Hidow, who had stayed behind in the meeting room. “Only damn option we’ve got is to send Uhak the Silent at her… Can’t even communicate with the ogre, and he hangs out with Kia, too, but if kills her on some whim of his, then we got a chance.” “Hmph. No guarantees he’ll be able to defeat her even if you get your wish. If she’s really omnipotent, then she could be able to create Word Arts even when they’ve all been canceled out.” “I don’t got time to argue with some dumbass nonsense.” “Is it really nonsense? When she survived Mestelexil’s onslaught, she clearly managed to roll back her fate. You said it yourself… We still don’t know what Kia’s powers are fully capable of.” “…Tch!” Hidow clicked his tongue, sounding profoundly irritated. All power had its limits. Kaete had planned the operation that day presupposing these types of fundamental laws to their world. However, even with strength not of this world but from the Beyond, he hadn’t been able to gauge the limits of omnipotence. “One more thing I want to know. What about Yaniegiz?” “…Didn’t see him in the group, did you? Should make it obvious. That idiot quit the Twenty-Nine Officials. His whole arbitrary decision to use Elea’s name to lure out Kia was to do exactly this from the damn start…! Took all of Rosclay’s men with him, and he’s seriously trying to kill Kia the World Word. Guy’s nuts.” “Laid all the groundwork inside the reformation faction, did he? The man’s an utter imbecile, but not for lack of spite. Does he know about this new operation, then?” “No clue. There were a whole bunch of the reformation guys among the group gathered here. If they pass on the info to him, he might try to cut in and kill Kia after we lure her out. Not that him showing up’ll make a damn difference.” “How are you going to lure her out?” “Highly likely that Kia comes to get her friends back. Elea may be dead, but since Uhak’s alive, she can still save him. We’re using the North-South Railway to transport Uhak the Silent. Kuze the Passing Disaster’s his escort. Uhak was working together with Kia and Tu, but since he and Kuze shared a mentor, he might listen to what he says more than the other two.” So the idea’s that Kuze’s not just a means to oppose Kia’s omnipotence but serves as a way to control Uhak once Kia’s been lured out, too… Pretty efficient move to make in an emergency like this. If Uhak the Silent was truly able to nullify all supernatural abilities, then the moment he got close enough to perceive Kia the World Word, even a single musket shot would be able to finish her off. On top of that, Kia’s attack methods could brush up against the conditions behind Kuze the Passing Disaster’s lethal counterattack. “Kaete, you obviously know the reason I called you here when you don’t got a damn organization to even mobilize, yeah? Uhak’s being transported on the Orange Thirty-Six train along the North-South Railway. Tell Mestelexil to follow after ’em.” “I planned on settling the score with Kia the World Word whether you told me to or not. Mestelexil and I took on this operation to begin with. Which is why I don’t like any of this. Right after Yaniegiz resigns, you just decide on your own to get this operation going. Was this whole ‘emergency meeting’ a big farce, too?” This wasn’t the only part that stuck in Kaete’s throat—they were treating their strongest piece of all, Mestelexil, like a backup plan—and finding it unnecessary to mobilize him first and foremost. “Listen, Kaete…I ain’t doing this ’cause I want to be throwing my weight around, got it?” Hidow slammed his fist into the wall, but with how exhausted he was, it only made a quiet thud. “…We’re faced with this emergency, and you expect me to listen to you mouth off about every little thing? Wake the hell up, Kaete. There ain’t no time to waste getting everyone’s opinions when we’re up against a foe like this. We were simply lucky to get out of this with only the palace’s main hall turned to rubble. Any district in Aureatia could get attacked right this very moment and be wiped off the damn map!” “Hmph.” In the past, Hidow the Clamp had been recognized by himself and others as a natural talent with a sheltered upbringing. Kaete acknowledged his wits, but when it came to political conflicts, he had viewed him as a runt who didn’t even come close to Rosclay. Though, after interacting with Haade and Yaniegiz and witnessing their madness firsthand, Hidow might have caught their flames of obsessiveness. When talking about genuine almighty power, they couldn’t afford to be stingy or picky about their methods. When it came to that thought, Kaete was of the exact same position as Hidow. “You’re the one who said it, so you better not get the priorities mixed up here. We’re killing Kia the World Word, no matter how we do it.” At that same moment, there was strict surveillance spread out over the canal area in the Sixth Borough of the Northern Outer Ward, and the residents were forbidden from entering. The massive destruction that had torn apart the harbor area and several anchored vessels was explained to be the handiwork of self-proclaimed demon king Tu. The nominal reason, the safety of the citizenry, wasn’t a false one. Tu the Magic’s fight with Shalk the Sound Slicer left her neutralized and in a difficult position to come back from, but Aureatia had failed in the true goal of the operation—slaying Kia the World Word. From an outsider’s perspective, the reason behind the three-person union of Kia the World Word, Tu the Magic, and Uhak the Silent, unofficially designated the New Demon King Army, was unclear, and no one was certain that Kia the World Word would appear to rescue Tu. Nevertheless, Twentieth Minister Hidow the Clamp had sent as many surveillance personnel as possible to the Sixth Borough of the Outer Northern Ward at the same time he put the Uhak transfer plan into motion. Kia the World Word’s fighting strength was closer in scale to a natural disaster than a singular individual at this point. There was zero chance that even the guarding eyes of the land’s largest army would be able to stop her assault, but there was significance to keeping the canal under watch. The first was to prevent any contact with the citizens or any potential witnesses. The fact that Kia had been designated a self-proclaimed demon king had yet to be announced to the public at this stage. The other reason was to observe her main goals. If Kia immediately came to rescue Tu, then it was highly likely she would plan to make contact with Uhak, too. It would solidify that pouring all their energy into the Uhak transport operation was their best option. Tu also picked up on parts of this frantic action while still submerged underwater. Vibrations and sounds, different from the flow of the river, which came to her ever so slightly from aboveground. The presence of a person who seemed out of place in the desolate streets of the Northern Outer Word’s Sixth Borough pulled Tu out of her regretful drowse. Though, being a construct, Tu the Magic hadn’t actually been asleep in the true meaning of the word. What’s going on up there? As a result of her clash with Shalk the Sound Slicer, Tu was still totally immobilized. Tu’s body was bound up by something that even her brute strength could sever, despite being designed to possess ultimate physical abilities—a strand of her own hair. The total blackness from being buried under the endless rubble and sand amassed on the riverbed made her lose all sense of time, but even then, not much time had actually passed since her defeat at Shalk’s hands. Is Aureatia trying to lift me up out of here? That can’t be it, right…? The faint vibrations eventually became a whirlpool, then began changing into a current with a singular direction. It wasn’t the normal current of the canal, either. It was a swift torrent up toward the water’s surface. “Bwh, blrgh!” Tu struggled, unable to move her hands and feet, as she was swallowed up in the turbid waters. Since Shalk had made her sink to the bottom, Tu had stopped breathing of her own accord, but after being fully freed from her coffin of sand and dirt, water suddenly rushed into her respiratory system. Naturally, Tu wasn’t panicked about drowning like a regular living creature. Even in the midst of the storming waters, as if the earth and the sky had flipped on their heads, her senses still remained acute and clear. There was a voice. “Return Tu.” Even among the surging current, she heard the voice perfectly. A voice she recognized. “…Kia!” Dragged up by the raging torrent underwater, the momentum threw Tu up to the water’s surface. Looking from the sky, Tu realized the current of the canal itself was coiled like a giant snake showing its belly. The canal midway down was dyed pitch-black. What was once the riverbed had been flipped up to the surface, filling the waters with a massive amount of wood and metal. It was monstrous. Tu landed on the demolished harbor like a cat. While she was tossed into the air, the strands of her own hair that had tangled around her body unraveled like a matter of course. It wasn’t a phenomenon that was meant to occur naturally. “Kia! You did all this, right?!” Tu couldn’t think of anyone else besides Kia the World Word who was capable of having such powerful effect with just a single phrase of Word Arts. Despite being caught up in Aureatia’s schemes, Kia was unharmed and had saved Tu. Tu still wondered to herself, though—had Kia always been the type of girl to use such destructive Word Arts like this? Some part of her felt an instinctual unease. The wind was strong. “Kia! Where the heck are you?” Tu could immediately pick out Kia’s figure. In the middle of a raging current no one from the harbor could hope to cross, there was a bizarre shipwreck. Not only that, but the aberrant, rampaging waves were perfectly still at that point only. On the unmoving wreckage’s bow stood a young girl in green clothes. “…Looks like you got out all right, Tu,” Kia murmured with her back to Tu. She had managed to stay safe. At the very least, she hadn’t had her freedom robbed from her, like Tu. Why then did Tu still feel this indescribable anxiety? “H-hey, so… What about you, Kia? Sorry I couldn’t go to help you.” “I’m…” Her golden hair was down, not tied in their usual pigtails, and loosely fluttered in the navy blue sky. “…Don’t be stupid. I’m fine. Totally fine. As if I’d ever care if you didn’t come to save me…or care about what anyone does to me…” “Kia…” “Since, if I say ‘die,’ then people would just die right there, no matter what… Am I wrong?” “What…happened?” Kia didn’t answer Tu. “Hey, Tu. I think I actually liked Aureatia.” Tu remembered Kia saying that she led a modest but happy life in Eta Sylvan Province. Led out of her village into the outside world by her former teacher, Kia had lost a great deal. She was separated from her teacher and continued her lonely, solitary escape. “A lot of awful stuff happened to me, angered me…and made me feel really terrible, but…the minia…weren’t all bad, either.” The spray from the canal’s Word Arts roiling washed Tu’s cheeks. Tu got the feeling she knew why Kia refused to face her. “But I…” I can’t fear. I was never given the ability to feel it. Tu didn’t know how many things weighed on the minian races’ minds, how they hurt or anguished, or how much they feared. She was always left behind. Yet despite that, why did she feel sad when someone she knew was hurt, in pain, or missing? She thought when she met the True Demon King that fateful day, and learned what true terror really was, some part of the functionality designed to make her the perfect life-form had broken down. “…Kia. I’ll go, too. I won’t ask anything.” “Tu… I—I can—I can do anything… I can make anything happen, so why—why…?” “I’m here with you. You can’t do this all by yourself.” As someone who trembled in fear even while furnished with invincible strength, this was all she could do. When she saved Sephite, in the Land of the End—and her journey all along the way—this was the only thing Tu had ever managed to do. Even if everyone else was totally gone, Tu and Tu alone would never perish. “Let’s go rescue Uhak! We can still… I know we can get to him in time!” Kuze the Passing Disaster was carried to Romog Joint Military Hospital after the mission to take out Nectegio the Ravenous Rot in Kadan Third District. There were suspicions that, by stepping into Nectegio’s fungal labyrinth, he had been infected with an unknown pathogen. Kuze himself had his own intention to use his hospital admission to draw out the beginning of the eleventh match. The whereabouts of his opponent for the eleventh match, Zeljirga the Abyss Web, were currently a complete mystery, and unless they found her or Aureatia secured a replacement hero candidate for him to fight, Kuze’s match would end with a win by default. That would make achieving Kuze’s goal impossible—in order to get Queen Sephite within range of Nastique’s instant death, the second-round matches, which the Queen was set to watch in person, needed to happen. I’ll admit my little act about feeling unwell was a pretty ridiculous performance, but… Right now, Kuze was atop a bed, shaking back and forth slightly. It was the vibrations from the steam engine and the steel wheels. Kuze was currently lying inside the sleeping car of the Orange Thirty-Six Train, traveling along the North-South Railway that vertically crossed Aureatia. I never thought they’d drag me into this before my hospital stay was even over. The job assigned to Kuze was to guard and control the freshly recaptured Uhak the Silent. He hadn’t been told anything else. He wondered what sort of enemy out there required them to utilize Uhak’s abilities just like they had with Nectegio. In the end, Uhak had returned to being Aureatia’s weapon. Kuze hadn’t been able to give him freedom. Kuze’s attempts to provide some bit of salvation to Tu and Uhak had proven meaningless. Uhak the Silent’s period of freedom had lasted less than a small month following Nectegio’s subjugation, and Tu the Magic had been designated a self-proclaimed demon king that the hero candidates were meant to slay. Before long, he would likely be ordered to take out Tu as well. That’s one thing I won’t do… Not that. In order to shoulder all the disgrace that continued to stain the Order, Kuze needed, by himself, to assassinate the Queen. The only way a man like Kuze could meet the Queen was to remain on the playing field as a hero candidate. The plot to assassinate the Queen was no longer just a problem for him alone. Dozens of the Order’s leaders had staked their lives and honor hoping for this one achievement. Kuze had claimed far too many lives in order to ultimately kill the Queen herself. Including his friend and Uhak’s sponsor, Nofelt, too. There was no inferiority or superiority in the lives of those bearing hearts of their own, regardless of their sins. That was what the Order taught. Even then, if Kuze was allowed one selfish wish of his own, he didn’t want to kill Tu. “I’m sure that you’re aware, but I’m still recuperating here. While I get I need to do this to appear in my match, I’d really like to avoid any absurdly dangerous opponents like Nectegio again…” Kuze spoke to the man sitting in the same room, still lying back on the bed. “Am I really just here to escort Uhak? Minister um…Yaniegiz.” “That’s right. My apologies for asking so much of you.” Yaniegiz the Chisel was a thin, wiry man with a snaggletooth. He had been one of the Twenty-Nine Officials until recently, but for some reason or another, he was demoted from his position. Ever since Haade the Flashpoint plotted his coup, and Rosclay the Absolute was defeated in the turmoil, the personnel affairs within Aureatia’s Twenty-Nine Officials were in utter and complete chaos. “However, during the fungal labyrinth mission, you showed that you were able to communicate with Uhak even though he cannot understand Word Arts, yes? Besides, that power of yours is just as effective whether you fight yourself or not, after all.” “So that means there’s a chance I’ll get caught up in a fight on this escort duty? Bweh-heh-heh… Don’t like the sound of that…” Supposing there was indeed an attack against Uhak, if it was large-scale enough to get Kuze caught up in it as well, Nastique would kill the enemy before they could get their target. That must have been Aureatia’s plan. He had no intention of correcting their misconception. Nastique never got anywhere near Uhak and his complete Word Arts nullification. Even if she was nearby, Kuze couldn’t ensure the absolute safety of whoever he was tasked with protecting anyway. Rosclay had been fatally wounded right in front of Kuze’s eyes. “Ah… This is just out of curiosity, but who do you plan on making Uhak fight? Without a sponsor, Uhak’s officially no longer a hero candidate, either…” “That’s classified.” “…I heard Tu the Magic was designated a self-proclaimed demon king, but this wouldn’t be about taking her out or anything, would it?” “No.” There wasn’t even any real reason to ask that. What a pathetic question… Kuze had simply asked to hear Yaniegiz deny the cruelest hypothesis Kuze could come up with. Assuming Yaniegiz had said it was, Kuze wouldn’t have been able to find the resolve to abandon his hero candidate status in resistance, nor to forsake Tu and Uhak. The window from his bed was at a very acute angle, and he saw white clouds passing by outside. As always, giving up was the only thing Kuze the Passing Disaster could ever manage to do. Outside the train car, on the frame of the window, sat a young girl, almost transparently white with soft short hair. She stared in the opposite direction the train ran, as if sending off the scenery behind them. Kuze thought it was very much like her to think of what they had passed by, rather than where they were heading. The death-bringing angel. Nastique the Quiet Singer. It was the name of the angel only Kuze could see. “…Kuze.” Yaniegiz spoke up, sitting with his face tilted down. “You see, I was born in the Central Kingdom, but I come from a very poor district. The Order’s cared for me countless times before, and I bet I caused them a lot of trouble, too.” “I’m sure everyone would be overjoyed to know that they were able to help you, Minister Yaniegiz. What about the Order, then?” “‘One mustn’t hate. One mustn’t harm. One mustn’t kill.’ —That is part of the Order’s teaching, yes?” “…‘Just as one would do unto one’s family.’ You remember well.” Kuze got up and sat at the edge of his bed. At this point, there was no reason to pretend to be sick anymore, but more than that, whatever Yaniegiz had to get off his chest seemed like something he needed to seriously listen to as a follower of the Order. “Tell me, then. If someone was to end up with someone they felt deserved something even worse than death…would that person no longer receive the Wordmaker’s salvation?” “…” Kuze looked out the window at Nastique. One mustn’t kill. Kuze himself defied that teaching more than any other. While he hadn’t hated or harmed anyone, he had constantly forced Nastique to kill others. To Kuze, that seemed far more sinful than killing another out of hatred. “There are several theological discussions on this, so I hope you won’t mind me giving you my own personal interpretation, but…I believe that this teaching isn’t here to punish people who hate or harm. We’re taught that all with hearts and souls are loved, but…if the idea’s that only the good people without an evil heart are supposed to get along, that’d mean that everyone who wasn’t like that would never find salvation, wouldn’t it? “But there are also a great many followers who interpret the Order’s teachings as holding the inevitability of punishment as paramount. Especially during the Demon King’s Age, the out-of-control rampage of the followers among the people were unpardonable.” “…Bweh-heh-heh. Fair enough. Heck, I’d never try to claim that all those people have an incorrect understanding or that they’re not actual friends of the Order.” Even the countless criticisms about the Order born from the terror of the True Demon King weren’t all baseless rumors and gossip. There were several followers who had been driven by their warped faith into committing truly ghastly acts. At the very least, for those who committed such acts at the time, it did not seem that faith in the Wordmaker became their salvation from the terror of the True Demon King. Seeing the priests and followers that had gathered the trust of the community driven to madness must have instilled a fear toward the Order itself in the hearts of the people. “Everyone out there…hurts others sometimes. Even us in the Order. Don’t you think that, at the same time, somewhere inside one’s heart, they’re wishing for something else? That, in truth, no one wants to hate. No one wants to harm… No one wants to kill.” “…” “I mean, think about it; holding that hate toward someone for so long would be agonizing for anyone, right?” There were those in the world who transformed hatred into their prime motivator—or those who genuinely found glee in harming others. However, Kuze believed that there wasn’t anyone out there who felt that way from the very start. If a person’s heart changed from the pain and anguish of their life, then it should have been just as possible to change their heart once again. That their hearts could revert back to what the Wordmaker had originally bestowed to them. “Hee-hee… I just can’t seem to fully wrap my head around it, I’m afraid.” Locking his fingers in his lap, Yaniegiz still had his head down. “Just listening to our conversation here, it does seem that there is no admonition in the teachings, I will admit, but…if the Wordmaker and the Order won’t punish hateful hearts, then who will?” “Oh, there is someone who will punish you. They’re always watching us and our actions.” Everyone needs to behave properly. When you do something bad, the angels will come to punish you. “…It’s our own hearts that punish us.” No one could see the Order’s angels, nor could they speak a word. However, when these invisible angels fulfilled their roles, first vested with divided parts of the Wordmaker’s power and authority when the world began…the angels scattered in pieces to all corners of the world and dwelled within the hearts of each and every creature. “…The heart. So the guilt one feels toward their sins is the punishment in and of itself… I see. Hee-hee, that’s your interpretation, then…” “Perhaps it’s all a bit too convenient. Still, when I think about the reason that we were all born with a conscience…about why we have this function in our hearts, when we should be able to survive just by acting selfishly, personally, that seems to be the most logically consistent explanation. Though, I imagine it isn’t a very helpful one…” “Then, what does one do to erase their hatred? If a sinner…no longer wishes to feel the anguish of their sins, what are they supposed to do?” “…………The Order’s teachings say that is done by learning the heart of another. If one is able to recognize that there are things in common between them and even this object of their hatred, they’ll no longer have to maintain their hate.” Kuze thought himself a fraud. He was simply telling Yaniegiz the same things preached wildly by the Order. He didn’t know a way to actually save people. In this world where the terror of the True Demon King had run rampant, even the leaders of the Order, far wiser than Kuze himself, didn’t know any such method. “Learning about the heart of the one you hate, hmm…? Hee-hee.” Yaniegiz gave a dark chuckle. “Indeed, that is probably the best way. I know that…very well.” <Master Yaniegiz has already boarded the train.> Immediately following the meeting, Hidow the Clamp took a radzio call from the Orange Thirty-Six train. While it was something he had predicted, it was a report he hadn’t wanted to hear. “Dammit! That bastard’s done it now…! I want all the details!” <He boarded together with three squads’ worth of troops claiming to be part of a Police Agency investigation. Given we were in the middle of an emergency escort and lacking personnel, we determined it would be difficult to fight them off…> “You’re damn right it would be. What’s the point in Aureatia soldiers killing each other in the middle of a situation like this?!” The plan to transport Uhak was being executed with speed and secrecy at Hidow’s sole discretion in order to prevent wider damages, but Yaniegiz had been in charge of everything up until just a few days prior, so it must have been leaked to him after all. Freshly reinstated in his Twenty-Nine Officials’ post, Hidow still had no hope of using his perks to beat Yaniegiz. This was the head of the Police Agency, as well as a member of the reformation party carrying on Rosclay’s dying wishes. “…All right, so now that he’s on board, what is he up to?” <First he checked on Uhak’s status, and now he is keeping watch on Kuze. He does not appear to have caused them any harm.> “That’s obvious, too. Yaniegiz knows more than anybody that three squads of soldiers ain’t going to do anything against guys like Uhak or Kuze.” It went without saying, but it meant they wouldn’t have any effect on Kia the World Word, either. Only enough troop strength to forcefully worm his way into the operation… That said, after doing all that to sneak on the train, does Yaniegiz have some trick up his sleeve that’ll let him take on Kia? He ain’t there just to watch Kia die out of some personal grudge, that’s for sure. The kind of idiots who pull this crap always got an equally stupid idea in their heads. In the past, Hidow had looked down on fools who got carried away with totally illogical acts. However, Harghent the Still, whom Hidow had looked down on, succeeded in bringing the Lucnoca the Winter into the Sixways Exhibition and completely upset the state of affairs in Aureatia. Yaniegiz was nothing but a fool, the same as Harghent. Driven by his personal hate, he chose to enact a stupid plan that provoked Kia’s animosity and exposed all of Aureatia to the threat she posed. Still, at that time, would Hidow have been able to come up with another ideal strategy like luring Kia out to the Mali Wastes alone and forcing her to battle against Mestelexil without causing damage to others? “Yaniegiz’s a crazed loon, but he’s not actually stupid. He’s got to have some sort of plan, the kind that only someone willing to let Aureatia burn would come up with… Listen up; don’t you let Yaniegiz near Kia. If he’s in Kuze’s room, I want you to lock them both in there together until you reach the destination.” <…Is that really okay, sir?> “I’m giving you permission. Yaniegiz’s the one who illegally intervened in all this to begin with, got it?” Uhak’s destination was simply designated for convenience’s sake. Considering Kia’s mobility and omnipotent abilities, it was highly likely she would attack mid-transport. Hidow had reserved an entire train to transport Uhak in order to separate him from the city as fast as possible, as he was highly likely to be Kia’s next target, and to limit the casualties that would get caught up in Kia’s attack as much as possible. If they ambushed her at the Monstrous Races Protective Camp, they predicted damages that were far too great. Also, there was significance in Kuze just being present wherever Kia was going to attack. If Kia was capable of breaking through even Uhak’s paranormal nullification, Kuze’s ability to grant instant death would then prove effective. His fundamentally undefined instant death was one of the possible methods that could prove effective against Kia’s almighty defenses. To ensure that he didn’t get wise to the operation, as well as to stop him from getting within range of Uhak’s ability, given that that was still indeterminate, it was actually better to keep Kuze locked in his passenger car and not give him a chance to encounter Kia at all. Right. This all works better for us this way. Hidow felt like he was using rationality to guide his thoughts where he wanted them to go. After capturing the train, Yaniegiz didn’t approach the true target of the operation in Uhak but went to see Kuze instead. Was this all to make Hidow think that they could handle any unexpected interference from him, by locking him up instead of properly dealing with him? Before anything else, if Kia wished for it, she could easily encounter Yaniegiz whether he was locked up or not. The true choice Hidow was supposed to make wasn’t any sort of compromising strategy to ignore him or lock him up. Right. If I truly wanted to expel Yaniegiz from this whole operation, I need to get them to stop the train, even if it means bloodshed for those on the line, and to kick Yaniegiz and all his men off… Aureatia’s very existence is at stake here. If I really think this is trouble, I need to do this. <Lord Hidow?> “Sorry. Thinking stuff over. Lemme ask you… You get that you’re risking your life on this operation, yeah?” <Yes, sir. Young girl or not, we shall not let our guard down. I’ll put my life on the line to engage our nation’s enemy!> Hidow had never felt suspicious of his soldiers’ loyalty or sense of duty when they desperately executed his orders—occasionally giving their lives to do so. Whether they were rank-and-file or crack troops, Hidow had always chosen the option that would lead to the least number of casualties. This wasn’t done out of the goodness of his heart. He wanted to keep on living without bearing the heavy guilt that came from affecting the lives of others. Yaniegiz was dangerous. Aureatia might end up in ruins. Would Hidow be able to give them the order that the enemy they were fighting wasn’t Kia the World Word but their fellow Aureatian soldiers? “…Forget it. Same orders that I gave before. Try not to provoke the reformation guys too much.” <Copy that, sir.> The call ended. Hidow held his head in his hands for a time and tried to erase his self-loathing. A little while later, he looked over at Kaete, in the same room on a different radzio call. “How’s Mestelexil doing on his end…?” “…What? I’m talking to him right now. He’s mid-flight. He’ll arrive at the train soon.” “I want to remove the troops Yaniegiz sneaked on…without harming them. Can Mestelexil do that?” “Hmph. That’s what this is about… Don’t foist your meaningless busywork onto me.” Hidow understood it deserved a scornful laugh. From the beginning, he couldn’t have ever expected Mestelexil to handle delicate suppression very well. “If you don’t mind them losing a few limbs, though, that’s a different story.” The Orange Thirty-Six Train on the North-South Railway. On this train, running far away from both the Aureatia Central Assembly Hall and the castle garden theater holding the Sixways Exhibition, the shura who dictated Aureatia’s fate were about to clash. Uhak the Silent. Kuze the Passing Disaster. Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge. Tu the Magic. Kia the World Word. The first indication was a high-pitched and artificial roar. The noise, clearly different from the sound of a steam engine, changed into a low humming sound as it announced its approach. Kuze lifted himself up. “Um, Minister Yaniegiz, I don’t mean to panic, but is there something closing in on us out there…?!” “Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge.” Yaniegiz remained calm. He flipped through what appeared to be some investigation data. “That noise is the sound of a fuel engine from the Beyond. Called a jet engine if I remember right.” “Wait now…just hold on a second, Mestelexil…? Are we going to be all right…?” It had been publicly announced that Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge had left the control of his supporter, went on a rampage, and then disappeared. Not only that, but according to Kuze’s own information, he didn’t appear to be associated with a respectable camp. After supposedly dropping out of the tournament, Mestelexil had attacked Kuze unexpectedly as Kuze raced toward the eighth match, deployed by a lycan who appeared to be with Obsidian Eyes, Hartl the Light Pinch. “I’m guessing they arranged ahead of time for him to meet up with this train, so please don’t overreact.” “I mean, I obviously don’t kill people just for getting a little scared, but…” Kuze scratched the back of his head, worried about what lay outside the window. It seemed that Mestelexil wasn’t coming from the direction they were facing, as Kuze only saw the blue sky and town scattered among the passing landscape. What exactly was Aureatia planning here? “For starters, this passenger car’s been locked from the outside, right? Isn’t that odd? Don’t tell me that I’ve fallen into some trap with you.” “…Oh. Is that what you’re worried about? It’s not strange at all. I have nothing to do with this operation; I’m a total outsider who just sneaked on.” “Wh-whaaat…?” Kuze had been asleep in his passenger car bed right from the start and didn’t know anything about these circumstances. When he thought back, Kuze hadn’t noticed Yaniegiz among the Aureatia soldiers who had given him his orders and accompanied him to the train, but since the man had entered his passenger car with such confidence, Kuze assumed Yaniegiz was the commanding officer on board. “Besides, you said it yourself. I’m no longer a part of the Twenty-Nine Officials. I’d say, really, shutting me in here is a pretty reasonable on the part of the commanding officer for this operation.” “And I’ve basically gotten caught up in all this…?” The objective behind this whole transport mission was full of mysteries already, but the power dynamics in the Twenty-Nine Officials were even more inscrutable than that. Nevertheless, Kuze couldn’t help feeling like danger was heading toward them. Perhaps he was simply a coward. “Minister Yaniegiz… Though, actually, I guess I should drop the minister title.” “As you wish.” “Can I grab my shield? Just in case.” In the corner of the car, Kuze’s great shield was leaning against a wall. Though he was traveling while infirm and not up for a fight, this was still nominally an escort mission. Yaniegiz stood up as well. “Did you…sense something?” “Yeah. It’s different from the sound of Mestelexil’s engine, but something’s—” In the span of single breath, Kuze dashed to his shield on the wall. Using his right foot out ahead of him as the pivot point, he immediately whirled around and shielded Yaniegiz from the window. There was a crushing noise. It wasn’t the windows shattering—the iron walls of the train itself were torn apart and smashed. Fine fragments grazed Kuze’s shield. Flying into the room was a tall young girl. Her thin, chestnut-colored braid flowed behind her like a tail. “There were passengers in here?! I’m sorry!” “Tu…!” Tu the Magic. So was she the target Aureatia was trying to use Uhak to dispose of after all? Yaniegiz had denied the claim earlier, but… “Kuze! Why’re you here?!” “I should be the one—” The moment Kuze went to reply to her, the situation drastically changed even further. “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Something resembling a ball of flames flew in from the gaping hole Tu had made and slammed her into the door with explosive force. If Kuze hadn’t picked up his shield and moved to the corner of the room, both he and Yaniegiz would have been bowled over and crushed. It was an indigo golem. It had a claw grip on Tu’s head and pushed it against the destroyed floor and door while the single eye on its round head whirled about. “I-i-is this…the enemy?! I b-b-broke the…train! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” “Nnngh…! Hey, where did that come from?!” It was Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge. Seeing that a section of the train was destroyed, he had instantly flown there. “…Dammit! Which one of them’s attacking the train here, Minister Yaniegiz?!” “Neither of them! But she should already be close by!” “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Your head isn’t…getting crushed! Hey, Kaete! I-is this who, I’m supposed to kill…?! What?! It…isn’t?! This is…Tu?! It…has to be Kia?!” Mestelexil shouted as if he were conversing with someone. Pressed down by Mestelexil’s massive arm, there must have been enough stress on her head to easily smash open her skull, and yet there wasn’t even a drop of blood on her. Mestelexil… This guy is way too dangerous. It was fair to say Nastique’s compatibility with Mestelexil was as awful as it could possibly be. Nastique anticipated any and all hostile intentions, even the unknown attack methods from the Beyond, and was able to kill the golem, but Kuze had learned from actually engaging Mestelexil in combat that she couldn’t prevent the target she killed from coming back to life. Mestelexil wasn’t just immortal like Tu. He became immortal by endlessly reviving himself. Even though he wasn’t antagonistic to Kuze right at that moment… I’ve shown this guy…that Nastique can kill anyone at will! Nastique the Quiet Singer would kill anyone who tried to kill Kuze. Even against attacks too fast for anyone in the world to possibly react to, she would always bring instant death to the target faster than they could get the attack off, as if briefly turning back the wheels of fate an infinitesimally small amount. Therefore, Kuze could wipe out all his enemies without any harm befalling him, even if he didn’t make a single offensive move of his own. He had never made it known what the conditions were to trigger this power, but Aureatia’s side had long figured out what they were based on numerous tests—or so they thought. However, there was one other condition that could make Nastique go into action. It was Kuze the Passing Disaster wanting to kill someone he had in his sights. Not only delivering retributive punishment to those who wished to kill, Kuze had the right to freely kill anyone, if he so desired. His ultimate trump card, to be used to assassinate Queen Sephite. No one knew about this condition to using his power. Curte of the Fair Skies. Nofelt the Somber Wind. None who witnessed still walked the land…except for Mestelexil. Back then I did my best to make it look like it was an automatic counterattack, but…how strong is Mestelexil’s memory?! How sharp is his judgment…?! Assuming he’s returned to Aureatia’s side, does that mean he’s revealed my secret to them?! “Ugh, can…you…stop?!” Tu artlessly used her brute strength to raise her torso from under Mestelexil’s press. “W-w-wow!” Even for Mestelexil, possessing an irregular amount of strength for a construct, Tu’s physical strength was beyond his estimations. Thrown off-balance, this time it was Tu’s slender arm that grabbed Mestelexil’s wrist. With just a single hand, she swung him about in the most literal sense. “Wh-wh-whooooooooa!” Ceiling. Wall. Floor. Crashes that sounded like earthquakes echoed continuously through the moving train. Mestelexil, two times the size of a minia and made out of metals, was being slammed in every direction, as if Tu was a rambunctious child playing with her stuffed animal. The passenger car, built solid and strong, was smashed up, whittled down, and even the noise of the whole train’s movement grew distorted from the impact. “You’re so freaking…hard! What kinda golem are you?!” “Tu! This is dangerous! You have to get off this train!” Kuze frantically shouted as he protected Yaniegiz from the aftermath of the whirling destruction. Kuze didn’t believe that Tu would get hurt, even up against a foe like Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge. Even though she was flailing around like a berserk warrior, he knew she had the sense not to get Kuze or the innocent Aureatia soldiers caught up in it all. Still, she was in danger. Uhak was riding on the same train. While he couldn’t assess what sort of standards Uhak acted under or what his powers could erase, but given that Tu was likely a construct, Kuze doubted that she would escape unscathed from Uhak’s Word Arts nullification. “Uhak’s on this train, too!” “I know! That’s why I’m here!” “Wh-whoa… Let g-go of me!” Several explosions flashed in Mestelexil’s hand. He had fired something at point-blank range, but the attack only tore off Tu’s clothes in several places and revealed her bare skin beneath. “It’s…still not…working! Kaete?! C-can I use…my…missiles?! Huh…?! I can’t…destroy…the train?! Why not?!” Meanwhile, despite being slammed against the train with tremendous power, Mestelexil was also unharmed. The sound of metal creaking and tearing apart. The din of gunpowder explosions. They didn’t come one at time but layered on top of each other all at once. Kuze had the false sense that the pressure of the wind against his great shield was going to send his whole body flying. “Minister Yaniegiz! What exactly am I supposed to do here?!” “Don’t drop your guard… She should be close.” Yaniegiz looked around the car, as if searching the empty air for something. His complete indifference to the devastating destruction unfolding before his eyes was clearly abnormal. Tu, still with just one hand, brandished Mestelexil over her head. “Time! To fling you! Outside!” Tu had either realized that no amount of slamming Mestelexil around was going to harm him, or thought that, at this rate, she would destroy the train itself and went to toss the golem out of the big hole in the wall. Right at that moment, the wrist she had a grip on exploded. “Ah?!” Aiming for the moment Tu stopped moving, Mestelexil had cut off his hand at the wrist. The massive indigo frame rolled across the hole-ridden floor and collided with Kuze’s great shield. “Hrnk!” Mestelexil only made light contact, but Kuze let out a grunt at the weight he felt through his shield. “…Are you all right, Kuze?” “B-barely… Actually, we might be in real trouble here…” “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! What is this…shield?!” Mestelexil laughed as he got up and casually grabbed the large shield he had collided with. Kuze felt himself almost get picked up into the air. “Whoa there!” “There’s people…behind…it!” “H-hey there… Been a while, huh…?” “Huh?! We’ve met before?! Kuze!” “Bweh-heh-heh… A lot may’ve gone down between us, but last time’s all water under the bridge, okay? So…could you let go of my shield?” “Kuze! Last time? When…was last…time?” “So, um, aren’t you using a little too much strength…?!” “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Mestelexil simply moving the shield was almost enough to send Kuze’s whole body whirling through the air. “Minister Yaniegiz! Mestelexil here… He’s supposed to be our ally, right?!” “…It hasn’t been announced publicly yet, but Aureatia’s regained control over him. Currently, he’s been tasked with this operation just like Uhak.” “Control?! This is under control?! What exactly are you trying to defeat by bringing a guy like this along?!” Kuze tried to reclaim the shield the best he could. He ended up in a ridiculous position, like a child fighting over a toy, but it was, of course, ultimately a waste of effort. “Kia the World Word. The self-proclaimed demon king complicit in foul play during the fourth match and who attacked the royal palace to—” “Foul play?” Kuze heard an ice-cold voice right next to him. He reflexively looked in the direction of the voice, even taking his hand off his great shield. It came from the empty air that Yaniegiz had been glaring at a moment ago. “Go ahead and tell me… Who exactly committed foul play in that match?” There was a young girl. Long blond hair. A green robe, a bit like the elves’ folk dress.
Chapter 236
47 min read