“Gah! Ga-hah…! Ugh…!”
Dirk coughed, gasping for air—and when he opened his eyes, he found himself staring at a familiar face.
“Th-thank goodness…! Are you all right, Mr. President? N-no, right, I know you’re not okay, but anyway…!” she stammered, hurriedly moving her hands as large teardrops spilled from her eyes.
Dirk was about to give her the usual tongue-lashing, but he stopped himself and grimaced, clenching his teeth at the intense pain in his stomach. All the fat down there had kept Wernher’s knife from hitting anything vital, and the bleeding had already stopped, so the wound wasn’t immediately life-threatening, at least. If he had taken another blow, however, there was no way he would have survived.
Still enduring the pain, he glanced around and realized that he was on the shore of a lake. Looking farther ahead, he spotted the city of Asterisk in the distance and the wreckage of a half-destroyed airship partly submerged in the water nearby.
After Wernher’s attack, he must have lost control of the airship and crashed into the lake. If so, it was hard to believe he’d survived. Maybe his luck hadn’t entirely abandoned him.
“…And? What are you doing here, Korona?”
Dirk had ordered his secretary, Korona Kashimaru, to leave for a business trip to Solnage’s headquarters two days ago. A regular student would have had to undergo various cumbersome official procedures, but as Korona was a member of the student council, she could cut past all that red tape. She should have left the city the previous day at the latest.
“Oh, well… Actually, um, er… You gave me the assignment so suddenly, and it took me a while to get ready… N-no! I—I’m sorry! I did get ready in time! But then, probably because I was so busy preparing…I ended up oversleeping… By the time I woke up, the plane had already left…”
Her voice grew softer and softer as she made her excuses, but Dirk couldn’t muster the energy to yell at her. Asterisk’s floating international airport had connections to major cities all across the world, but it was by no means large. There were usually only one or two nonstop flights to Solnage’s headquarters each day. If a passenger were to miss one, their departure would usually be delayed until the following day—in other words, today.
Which meant…
“W-well, I was going to catch the flight today…but, er, there were all these terrorist incidents. So in the end, I couldn’t leave…”
“I get it, I get it. That’s enough. Anyway—who brought you here?” he asked sharply.
The next moment, two more figures emerged, as though oozing from the shadows of a nearby tree.
“Heh, that’s the Tyrant for you. Shrewd.”
“This wouldn’t be much fun any other way.”
The first was a small young man wearing a hood over his eyes. Dirk couldn’t read his expression, but from his manner of speaking, he seemed like the kind who looked down on people, making fun of them.
The other was a large, dark-skinned, dark-haired young man. At first glance, his stubble and gentle features might have made him seem friendly, but Dirk wasn’t so stupid as to miss the dark emotions lurking inside.
“You’re… Gose Kevut, right?”
“Heh, so you know me. I’m honored.”
The young man—Gose—was the user of the Lost Lux, with which he had fought Ayato in the opening round of the Lindvolus.
He was also a member of Azdaja, an organization formed from the remnants of the defunct integrated enterprise foundations Samandal and Severclara.
First things first, if Korona had been left behind in Asterisk, there was no way she could have escaped the city alone. It was also beyond her skills to rescue him from a crashed airship. Someone had to have helped her.
And there was no way that agents from Azdaja would offer that help out of the goodness of their hearts. They had to have some hidden agenda.
“Oh, right! These two helped me save you, Mr. President! Asterisk was a mess, what with all the terrorist attacks, and I was running to and fro not knowing what to do when we ran into each other…”
Korona, who probably lacked the faintest inkling of anything going on beneath the surface, bowed her head to them innocently. Of course, this was no coincidence. The two men knew that Korona was Dirk’s secretary, and they had deliberately sought her out.
“…Hmm. Well, good job tracking me down. I thought you Azdaja lot were a bunch of losers, but here you are.”
In the end, even Eishirou and Melchior, both of whom had been desperately pursuing him, had been unable to pin him down.
The two men, however, merely exchanged glances and shrugged.
“I’m afraid you overestimate us.”
“Yeah. We didn’t have a clue where to find you. That’s why we asked her.”
“Eh…? What’s that now?” Dirk raised an eyebrow. “There’s no way she could’ve known where I was.”
Korona may have been his secretary, but he entrusted her with little more than simple chores. The other members helped out with policymaking and implementation, but Dirk had never allowed them to handle any of the truly important matters. Since he didn’t trust anyone but himself, after all. With Korona’s Strega abilities, it wasn’t impossible for her to locate him, but seeing as her divination techniques relied on very strict conditions, it should have been fairly difficult for her to get the exact information she needed.
And yet…
“Eh? Um, I’m not sure what they’re talking about… I mean, I was the one to find you, but, er…”
“…What?” Dirk asked with a glare.
Korona let out a little shriek and cowered before him.
The small airship that he had flown in this time was different from the one he used for meetings with the Golden Bough Alliance. It was registered in the name of someone unrelated to Dirk, with no connection to Solnage, either. It should have been impossible for anyone to tie him to it.
“I—I mean, I kept calling you, but you wouldn’t pick up…and given the situation, I thought something might have happened…so I read your fortune.”
“You read my fortune?”
“Y-yes! So I worked out your situation, your whereabouts, and a bunch of other things… That you’d be up in the sky at the worst possible timing… And when I looked up, I saw an airship about to crash into the lake! I thought, ‘Oh my God, the president must be up there…’ Huh? Mr. President?”
Falling silent, Korona tilted her head to one side in wonderment.
It was true that Korona’s ability was based on divination and fortune-telling, though she herself seemed unaware of it. Predictions that would never come true. And she could activate it once a day, and only in the evenings. If he was to believe her now, this wasn’t the result of said ability, but simply the regular fortune-telling that she tinkered with for fun.
In other words, it really was just a coincidence that she had managed to work out his location.
At that moment, the young, robed man with the low hood quietly approached Dirk. “We were impressed, too,” he whispered in his ear. “We knew your secretary had some amazing talents, but even we didn’t know her full capabilities. She’s amazing.”
For a second, Dirk thought the boy was mocking him—but apparently not.
This kid was under the mistaken impression that Korona really had tracked him down with that innocuous fortune-telling ability of hers.
“Bah… Hah-hah! Hah-hah! Ha-ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”
He couldn’t hold it in any longer.
“Eh? M-Mr. President?”
“Wh-what?”
Korona, the boy, and Gose were all watching him, dumbfounded.
No way.
Seriously?
This combination of coincidence and shallow misunderstanding had triumphed over all Dirk’s elaborate strategies and schemes; the efforts of Eishirou, Melchior, and all the others; and the plans and ambitions of Varda and Madiath? These people had arrived at the truth? What was that if not utterly absurd?
How could he not laugh in the face of this farce?
It was truly ridiculous—preposterous even.
Once he had finished laughing, he pointed his mobile at Korona.
“Hey, Korona. I’m not gonna be coming back for a while. So you’re acting student council president at Le Wolfe for the time being. I’ve already authorized you to carry out my duties and sent you all the necessary data. Check it out.”
“Huh…?” Korona blinked, not fully comprehending his words. “Eh?! Eeeeehhhhh?!”
Finally understanding what he had just said, she cried out in a panicked voice, “I-i-impossible! Impossible! M-m-me?! Student council president…?”
“Just shut up already! Hey, kid. Put her to sleep, would ya?”
“I don’t take orders from you,” the boy muttered. Nevertheless, he lightly tapped Korona on the neck.
“Ngh?! Yawn…”
And just like that, Korona fell limp, sound asleep.
“Hmm… I don’t really care, but are you lot sure you’re fine with this?” Dirk asked.
Gose looked at him questioningly, and Dirk clicked his tongue.
“You know what? Let’s cut right to the chase. You’ve come here to scout me, haven’t you, you Azdaja dogs?”
All at once, he could feel the temperature drop sharply as both Gose and the boy revealed their true colors.
“Heh… You’re quick on the uptake.”
The world Dirk had found himself in was dark, miserable, and cold.
No matter how far you went, there was no escape—not that he had any intention of running away from it.
“Fine. I don’t really like it, but we’re all losers here. Let’s join forces.”