Sara took the opportunity to raise her voice.
“It was actually another secret society, one besides the Knights of Valor, who incited the strike.”
She went on, her voice still loud and sonorous. “There’s a group in this country that’s still fighting for revolution to this very day.”
Erna bit her lip and shot a look over at her Knights of Valor allies.
The girl who’d rushed in to save them had put her life on the line to challenge the leader of the Kingdom’s intelligence agency to a debate. She’d held fast in order to show them the truth. Erna hoped that Sara’s passion and determination had gotten through to them. She needed them to realize that Sara was trying to relight the fire in their hearts that had very nearly gone out.
“______________”
Erna bit down harder.
All they were was bewildered.
Sara had gone to such lengths to discredit the witnesses, yet the Knights of Valor members were doing nothing but staring in confusion at Sara and Nike. Even Jean was no different.
The truth Sara had guided them to lacked the oomph to inspire them.
“What a waste of time.” Nike slumped her shoulders in disappointment. “That’s your big gotcha, that Lylat has other secret societies? Everyone knows that.”
“……………”
“You really think that’s groundbreaking enough to explain me ‘going out of my way’ to come here? To explain me ‘going out of my way’ to restrict media coverage? To explain me ‘going out of my way’ to put together an elaborate, time-consuming set of traps?”
“What I think is that you’re panicking and trying to end the conversation early—”
“I’m ending it because I’m bored out of my mind. At the end of the day, you failed to present a single new truth. Now, let me repeat myself one last time,” Nike said, raising her index finger. “It’s true that this country has a lot of secret societies. But each and every one of them has been manipulated and encouraged by Galgad intelligence and fed propaganda to make them hate their own countrymen. They use their empty criticisms of the government as an excuse to commit crimes across the country and threaten the peace of good, upstanding citizens.”
Nike’s figure drew people in, and her confident voice kept them there.
She was taking assets that Sara simply didn’t have and leveraging them against the college students.
“Is it really that bizarre for me to put in the work? I’ve had it up to here with you mocking these fine people! If I can help save a bunch of bright, promising youngsters from Galgad brainwashing, I’ll spend as much time as it damn well takes!!”
When she continued, her voice had the melodic quality of a loving lullaby.
“Tonight was going to be a wonderful opportunity to reconcile with them, and I’d appreciate it if you stopped trying to interfere.”
By playing with the stress in her voice, just like that, she had the Knights of Valor members right back under her thumb.
Nike’s lies were impossibly attractive. The students knew they weren’t true, yet they wanted to cling to them anyway. Nike was promising their safety and stroking their egos. Their lives might have been hard, but a little praise from a hero was enough to make them willing to put up with a lot.
That was how the people of Lylat always reduced themselves to slaves of the monarchy. The constant lies were protected by their hatred toward the Galgad Empire and further cemented by Nike’s power.
“You and the pink-haired girl were just chatting, right? She a friend of yours?” Nike said contemptuously as she pointed at Annette. “You’ve got a lot of nerve, acting all preachy when you’re in league with a monster who’d strap bombs to her own allies. What a crock.”
“………………………”
Her tone had shifted, and now it was like Sara was completely beneath her notice.
In the blink of an eye, Nike was back in the driver’s seat. The previously confused Knights of Valor members were starting to fall into line.
Nike’s strength was that she was able to control the room without so much as drawing a knife. She had no ability to peer into hearts like Thea could, yet that hadn’t stopped her from winning her audience over.
“You’re going to jail. Nobody’s interested in listening to what you have to say anymore.”
Nike strode toward Sara as though to say that their duel was decided.
Her gait was unhurried. She was confident that she could refute anything Sara said, and the raw force she emanated made it clear that hostages were of no concern to her.
Every tiny thing she did made it clear how fundamentally outmatched Sara was.
“That blackened, dirty wing relief had another meaning.”
Sara spoke up anyway.
Undaunted by her opponent’s approach, she glared at Nike with her head held high. “When you try to add that many meanings to a message, each one gets harder to notice. The relief was made of copper. And it was covered in a black, sooty powder. Copper and black powder, does that remind you of anything?”
She neither fled nor drew a bead with her gun. With words as her sole weapons, she raised her voice to the loudest it had been yet.
“That first newspaper article said there was an intense, echoey roar and a flash of light that lit up the sky—but why was that? Why, when all the blast marks were in a coal mine underground?”
It seemed as though Nike had sped up her pace a little.
Even so, Sara didn’t panic.
“That’s right. It was a flame test with gunpowder and metal that filled the whole sky—a firework. Oh hey, didn’t I hear that King Clement III is a huge fan of fireworks? The elections two years ago didn’t go very well for the previous king, and Clement III took the throne. On the night of his coronation, he filled the sky over downtown with fireworks.”
She continued.
“But wait, that’s strange. There was a festival just the other day for the two-year anniversary of his reign, and yet they didn’t set off a single firework. Huh? That’s funny. Maybe he doesn’t like fireworks after all.”