“Iska, this is what will end our battle.”
“We can only feel regret for the fate that forced us to settle things in a way we never sought!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Yes, of course…
Back then, perhaps when she had viewed Iska with rage, she had felt the same emotions Mizerhyby did now.
But at this moment, she only felt she must reject continuing her crusade for such a meaningless reason.
“Come to me, Mizerhyby!”
That was why she yelled as loudly to the Hydra princess as she could.
“I’ll agree with you on one thing. I think this fight between the royal families is as asinine as it gets!”
✦ ✦ ✦
The Lord’s offices.
The inside of the facility was more or less empty.
Even the guards from Special Division I generally stood watch from outside and rarely entered the Lord’s office.
“Basically, we’ve got the whole place to ourselves.”
The hallways were silent.
Jhin, who leaned against a wall, peered at a screen in his hand. It flipped through different images of feeds coming from surveillance cameras all over the Lord’s office.
There were enough for all the floors, 239 cameras in total.
The footage was divided into twenty-four images that were all shown for twenty-second intervals before switching. In other words, the entirety of the Lord’s office could be seen in about two hundred seconds.
“No changes. No intruders. Actually, even if there were one, the Special Division I guards outside would notice first.”
“…Yeah.”
Next to Jhin, Mismis stared up at the ceiling.
She held a comm in her hand.
She checked it nearly every minute but hadn’t received any new information from headquarters.
“Still waiting for news on ex-commander Shanorotte?”
“…Yeah.”
Mismis only silently nodded at Jhin’s blunt question.
Shanorotte was somewhere within a military base.
Headquarters had confirmed that the ID she had stolen was already inside a base from its electrical signal.
“What is Noro planning…?”
“Definitely nothing good.”
Jhin never turned away from the security footage.
“The base is too big. It’s the perfect place to hide…but we know what Shanorotte looks like, too. She won’t be able to saunter around the base at least.”
Yes.
Just like Jhin said, even if she was on the base, it wasn’t as though she could accomplish anything here.
✦ ✦ ✦
All the surveillance cameras suddenly turned off.
✦ ✦ ✦
“What?!”
Mismis, who had been looking up at a security camera, saw the light that indicated the camera was functioning turn off.
“Jhin?!”
“Of the 239 cameras, 181 turned off. The ones that are still on…”
“There are fifty-eight!”
“Now twenty-seven. Even more turned off.”
Jhin put the screen away into his breast pocket and pulled out a comm.
He quickly worked the monitor.
“A power failure… Multiple cables at the base just so happened to cut out without warning.
“How about dedicated emergency generators?! Risya said that the Lord’s office has a separate powerline from the base, so—”
“That’s also malfunctioning. But the cables should be buried underground.”
Jhin was silent for a while. He was looking at the page dedicated to the base’s maintenance management system.
“I got it. The emergency generators aren’t malfunctioning because of the cable. It’s because of unusually high voltage.”
“Uh…”
“It’s like when lightning strikes and breaks a computer. The high voltage took out three of the seven emergency generators.”
Lightning.
The lightning strikes Shanorotte could unleash flitted through Mismis’s mind.
“This is bad, Jhin! If this is happening because of Lightning astral power, then the person behind it is—”
“Well… It’s not all that simple.”
Jhin shook his head.
“The generators have got SPDs—surge protective devices. These electrical surges are pretty common when lightning strikes. The base’s maintenance management department would’ve made sure to have some preventative measures for these situations.”
“S-so the SPDs failed?”
“No.”
As Jhin looked at the monitor, he clucked his tongue.
“The surge was higher than what the SPDs could handle. I’ll put this in a way you’ll understand. The lightning strike was a little stronger than what they expected, so the countermeasures didn’t help.”
“……Huh?”
Something felt off.
Shanorotte’s astral power was only strong enough to knock a single person unconscious.
For a spy, that was more than enough, of course, and it was dangerous at point-blank range…but it shouldn’t have been more destructive than natural lightning.
“Then this electrical failure is different?”
“Like I said, it’s not so simple.”
Jhin pushed away from the wall.
He scowled in irritation.
“This is probably Shanorotte’s doing.”
“What? B-but Jhin, how do you know that?!”
“The base’s security cameras are all down and there are only four emergency electrical generators left. On top of that, the electrical lines were cut, so it’ll take a while for power to be restored. Those are the exact conditions Shanorotte needs to do whatever she wants.”
“B-but the electrical system failure—”
…couldn’t have been caused by Shanorotte.
Mismis had started to say, but in that moment…
✦ ✦ ✦
They felt an explosion from below that shook the Lord’s office.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Wh-what was that?!”
They heard a shrill warning alarm go off.
The astral energy sensors that were still barely holding on were blinking a striking red color. It was the first time they were seeing this in the Lord’s office.
“That was pretty fast… So she’s prepped to do this, then.”
Jhin quickly strode down the corridor.
He put his comm away into his breast pocket and took his gun, which had been hanging from his shoulder, into his hands.
“Let’s go, boss. It’s the first floor of the Lord’s office. Shanorotte is here.”
“Whuh…?”
“Mizerhyby from the Hydra has the power to make others’ astral powers stronger, right?”
“Wha?!”
That was right. Why hadn’t she thought of that?
Even if Shanorotte’s astral power was weak, if it was powered up to its maximum potential, she could create a lightning strike more powerful than a real bolt of lightning.
“Right now, our defenses are focused on the astral power research facility, Omen. She’s using that as an opening to attack us solo. That’s what’s going on.”
“B-but all on her own…?”
“She doesn’t care about her own life. She just wants to land a blow on the head honcho.”
In other words…
✦ ✦ ✦
Shanorotte’s aim was to kill the Lord.
✦ ✦ ✦
That was exactly the type of thing a witch would be obsessed with.
Shanorotte was part of the Zoa’s faction, which wanted to burn the entire Empire to the ground. She had likely realized something.
Once Lord Mask fell, she knew that her dream would never come to be.
In that case, she had decided to cast aside her own life in order to kill the Lord.
“Then that explosion we heard below us…,” Mismis said.
“There are two possibilities. She either clashed with the guards outside, or she’s already—”
The silver-haired sniper suddenly came to a stop.
A gigantic door around the corner had been blown off as though someone had blasted through it with a superpowered laser beam.
“No…way …”
Mismis was so shocked she could barely speak.
She felt her cold sweat dripping down her face as she held her breath.
“This isn’t something a single astral mage could do with Lightning…”
“She’s not the Shanorotte we knew. We should operate under the assumption she has as much power as a Lightning purebred type.”
Jhin jerked his chin forward.
The remnants of the door smoldered.
The trouble was that the area ahead was split into two paths.
“Right or left, which way did Shanorotte go? She must’ve chosen one—”
“Jhin…”
As Jhin looked down the two paths, Mismis hesitantly continued. “The surveillance cameras aren’t working. If she gets away here, then we won’t be able to track her down… So we should split up and look for her.”
“That’s too dangerous,” Jhin replied immediately, not hesitating for even a second.
However, the silver-haired sniper still slowly turned around.
“But it looks like you knew that already. So why’d you propose it?”
“Well, I…”
She placed her fist over her chest.
Her legs quivered slightly. She stared at her knees.
“There’s something I still want to say to Noro. But I think if we’re together, she might be too on guard and won’t listen.”
“And you think she’ll be more relaxed if she’s just around you?”
“I think she looks down on me. So if we meet, I don’t think she’ll use her astral power or try to shoot me.”
“…”
Jhin went silent.
Before he could say anything else, Mismis gave him a reassuring nod.
“But that’s all right. As long as she’ll listen to me…!”
“You can do what you like when you find her, boss. But you’ve gotta call me right away, and you’ve only got until I get there. I don’t know how many dozen or so seconds that’ll get you, but if it doesn’t work out, then give up.”
“Okay!”
“Turn on your comm’s transmitter.”
Jhin headed to the right.
Mismis headed to the left.
Shanorotte had chosen one of these paths. She would be right there in front of one of them.
“Noro…where are you…?!”
Mismis’s footsteps echoed as she ran.
She had no idea where Shanorotte could be lurking. It wasn’t the best plan to make her movements known while not knowing where Shanorotte was, but Mismis was okay with that.
It was fine if Shanorotte looked down on her.
That Shanorotte thought of her as someone who would do something this careless.
Because then she might stop and listen to what Mismis had to say, even for a moment.
“Norooo!”
✦ ✦ ✦
“Heeey, Mis! You called?”