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After Lud returned to his senses, he headed for the large hall with Sven and Meitzer. On the way there, they heard gunshots.
“What’s that?!”
Sophia and the others were in the hall. Lud was filled with an unpleasant feeling that gripped his insides, but his spirit maintained hope as he ran. When he arrived, he saw...
“What... ?”
The scene before him was hard to believe. Augustan soldiers had stormed the hall. Smoke rose from their rifles as if they had just been fired. Their leader, clad in dark green, stood in front. It was Mary Ville Mehl.
“What are you doing here?” Lud was surprised, but Sven was speechless. “I thought you died!”
After the trial in Pelfe, terrorists had killed Mary Ville Mehl for betrayal, but here she was, looking as if nothing had happened.
“The woman you call the Saint saved my life and made me the leader of August.”
“What the heck?!”
Mary Ville had many supporters in August. By making her the leader, the Saint could use Mary against Wiltia. That was the scenario the Saint had written. Nonetheless, it was a very odd scene.
“Why... are you... um...” Lud was bewildered.
The Augustan soldiers in front of him had suppressed and captured the fighters under the Saint’s command.
“Why are Augustan soldiers helping us?”
Meanwhile, Sophia and Blitzdonner’s group had not been bound, disarmed or harmed in any way. On the contrary, it would be more accurate to say they were protected.
“Take them away. They’re witnesses. And make sure they don’t commit suicide!”
Mary Ville briskly issued orders to hold the Saint’s followers. She was choosing to defy the Saint’s will.
“I’d say it’s been awhile, but actually it hasn’t.”
Then, finally, she turned to Lud and the others.
“Why... did you help us?”
Mary Ville responded to Lud’s timid question with a snort.
“Don’t get the wrong idea! I have my own plans! This merely coincided with them! However...”
Huh?
She looked at Sven and her features softened a little.
“If things work out to your advantage, it’s nothing to me!”
That was how she truly felt. At the same time, a part of her wanted to help Sven’s group. She wanted to repay her obligation to the girl who loved the same man she loved, the man who had once asked her to bake bread with him, even though she had earlier opposed him.
“What is going on?”
They heard a low voice filled with anger. The Saint was again speaking through the transmitter. Security cameras had been installed around the castle that was now being used as the test site. The Saint was aware of the situation in the large hall.
“That’s easy. If you drop Verne 1 on the capital of August, many innocent citizens will die. I have prevented that.” Mary Ville replied to the Saint with a firm voice.
She sounded as strong and certain as she had the day she argued against Sven and Lud in court.
“You’re all the same, Saint. Just like the Wiltian military, which destroyed my hometown of Lapchuricka! You’re the same because you don’t care what happens to regular people when you pursue your lofty goals!”
Mary Ville’s hometown and the people in it had been attacked because of a military operation in the recent Great War. She had been injured and lost her family.
“I don’t know what you’re actually thinking as you try to control the world, and I don’t want to know! But I will tell you one thing! Our world of human beings belongs to us! So don’t play with it!”
Her determination conveyed her refusal to overlook interference, whether by the Saint or by God.
“Where did you come up with those soldiers?”
The Saint sounded surprised by Mary Ville, who had acted in defiance of the Saint’s expectations and instructions. No soldiers or factions following her should even exist.
“They are soldiers from Visario’s faction, the man you killed.”
Visario had occupied Chair Five of the Soviet Six, August’s highest decision-making body. He had joined with Genitz in plotting to organize August’s military without the Saint’s knowledge. However, the plot was discovered and he had been brutally beheaded.
“Visario’s soldiers? What have you done?!”
Mary Ville had taken over Visario’s soldiers. If she hadn’t been careful, they might have killed her. She developed connections with them and revealed the existence of Verne 1 and the Saint’s plan to attack their own national territory.
“I told them what I knew and asked them to lend me their strength, and they agreed. That’s all.”
They had once adopted dishonest methods to achieve their aims with the argument that they could not be picky about the means to reach their ends. Mary Ville persuaded them that if their ends are righteous, then they must choose their means accordingly. She had put that into practice. Despite the threat of death, she had engaged in dialogue, asked for help, and set her plans in motion.
“She’s pretty good...”
Like the Saint, Meitzer wasn’t human, but he openly expressed his admiration for the human Mary Ville. She had faced her situation head-on rather than deploying plots, schemes and conspiracies, and in doing so, she acted outside the Saint’s calculations.
“I see... I misjudged you.” The Saint spoke with open hatred.
Yes, she had misjudged the woman. She recruited Mary Ville as an idol supported by the people. However, Mary Ville had not acted as the Saint expected because she stood up for her own beliefs.
“But you’re wise enough to know that I still have the advantage.”
Mary Ville’s soldiers had surrounded the test site and the Saint didn’t have available recruits to resist them. Yet the Saint claimed the advantage.
“As long as I successfully launch Verne 1, I get everything I want!”
Preparations for the launch had been advancing steadily, even during the battle inside the castle.
“Less than thirty minutes remain until launch. You should get out of here. It’s a large rocket, so flames will consume this whole area.”
The Saint appeared to find this funny as her laughter came through the transmitter: Ha ha!
“The control room! Seize the control room and stop the launch!”
The Saint laughed again as Sophia shouted.
“You can’t. It’s too late.”
“What?!”
“I destroyed all the equipment in the control room. There’s no way you can stop the launch now.”
The rocket’s destination had already been programmed into Verne 1. They could neither stop the launch nor reprogram its commands.
“Oh, and just to be safe, I disposed of the staff as well.”
The Saint had also killed Helmut and the technicians in the control room. She assured them that their lives would be saved and they would be welcomed in August, but she had broken that promise.
She had not planned on betraying them. She had killed them because the situation changed and letting them go would have been risky. The Saint felt no guilt about it. She merely had no reason to inconvenience herself by keeping her promise.
“So what are you going to do?” Through the transmitter, the Saint sounded as if she were enjoying this.
They had struggled mightily, and just when they thought they had finally defeated her, she plunged them into failure. Nothing made her happier than forcing them to face a hopeless puzzle they could never solve. However...
“On the contrary!”
The Saint had failed to consider that there was a villain in the world who excelled at tricking malicious opponents.
“What...?”
When the Saint heard the intruder suddenly invading the office, her face tensed slightly. There were several monitors around the room connected to security cameras inside the castle. She could see Lud, Sven, Mary Ville and the others in the large hall, Verne 1 on standby for launch, and the control room with the destroyed equipment where the dead bodies of the staff members lay scattered. Static coursed across one screen. A face appeared there.
“Hello, hello, hello! How have you been?!” It was Daian “The Sorcerer” Fortuner. “Can you see me? Can you hear me? Hey, Saint! I’m a worthless human clown! How’s your mood now?” Daian spoke to the Saint with his affected and irritating banter.
The Saint’s voice couldn’t reach Daian. It was a one-way conversation, but Daian acted exactly as if he could hear her reaction.
“I’m sorry to do this when you appear so smug and in such fine spirits, but I must deliver bad news. I changed the flight program of that rocket you’re so proud of.”
The flight program determined the trajectory of the launched rocket and where it would drop.
“What did you say?” The Saint now looked truly tense for the first time.
“You destroyed the control room? What a mess. How could I rewrite the program?! Oh no!”
“Where?! Where did you instruct it to strike?!” The Saint knew he couldn’t hear her but she shouted at the monitor.
“I sent it up... like way, way up! So high where there’s no air! That’s right! Into space!” Perhaps Daian had predicted her reply, because he spoke with a grating voice and pointed skyward.
“No... When in the world... and how did you do that?!”
Daian’s interference was completely unexpected. He had disappeared immediately after arriving at Penmunde Test Site. She didn’t even know he was there.
“I’m surprised at your carelessness.” Daian continued speaking, taunting the Saint.
He removed something from his breast pocket and held it up. It was a mask, and a moment later when he fitted it over his face, he looked like a completely different person.