The workshop chief’s office was shockingly messy. The floor looked like a child had overturned a box of toys onto it, and scattered about were documents, parts, and junk inventions with unknown uses. If a visitor were told that this was a dumping site, it would have rung true. So unseemly was the room─and truth be told, the majority of the items there were, in fact, trash.
It was not easy, but a path could be discerned. However, going off it would be a mighty challenge. Bookshelves, a work desk, and furniture used to receive visitors were all present and visible, but the piles of junk extended even to those, leaving them unusable. Among it all, a single shelf that presented a mysterious apparatus beamed like a store’s showcase. The room seemed not to have been cleaned in years. It was full of dust and stank slightly of mold.
“Ack.” Having arrived at the workshop chief’s office with a broom in one hand and a dustpan in another, Sharle Inocencio stared blankly at the scene before her. How does a room even turn out like this?
For Sharle, the high-bred daughter of the famed merchant baron Dario Inocencio, the sight of the office was like something out of a nightmare. It wouldn’t be a surprise if some bizarre verminous bug lived under the sheaves of paper.
The old Sharle would have gotten cold feet and left, but her heart had grown stouter, especially after her brush with death. A dirty room still surprised her, but it wasn’t enough to stop her in her tracks. When she thought back to the days she’d spent in the darkness of the underground city living in fear of pursuit, the office she faced seemed like a trifling hazard.
“All right, why don’t we get started.”
The room wouldn’t get any tidier if she just stood around. She needed to work her hands, not her mouth, and get to cleaning the room like it was nothing. She’d gone to the trouble of borrowing a set of working clothes, so she could leap into this battle against messiness without having to worry about getting her own dress dirty. Compared to other clashes the one she faced was less stressful, but this was a mission, and she had tasked herself with it.
“Okay!” Sharle fired up her spirit and waded into the room, pushing trash on the floor aside with her feet.
It was now a month since Sharle first came to the factory town. Her life here was utterly peaceful. These, perhaps, were the first days in her fifteen years spent entirely carefree. Strictly speaking, she did worry about something, but it’d surely be resolved soon.
I’m happy. She’d been made to live as her father’s tool, but that was now in the past. Dario, who’d put her life under his thumb, had succumbed to the daggers of murderous heretics that worshipped Titans. She was finally free from the Inocencio family’s spell and lived as she wanted─even if her freedom had come in the unwanted form of her father’s demise…
Sharle now lived in the workshop that acted as the factory city’s core. Its chief was Xenophon Harkimo. Under his command, it was singlehandedly responsible for weapons and gear sold to the military and handled everything from development to manufacture. In essence, it was an armory. As many as a thousand craftsmen toiled from day to night, and Sharle rented a room there.
She had no complaints about life in the workshop. While it was impossible to keep from being annoyed by the noises and vibrations that came ringing, it was a minor issue compared to all that she’d faced before. They seemed to treat her like a guest, and she wasn’t put to work, but she didn’t feel comfortable about simply accepting their generosity. So she’d volunteered to clean. The state of disorder of the workshop chief’s room seemed like an accurate reflection of its occupant.
Sharle began by reaching for the reams of paper piled on the floor like confetti. Fortunately for her, no poisonous vermin came flying out at her, but she was surprised nonetheless at what she found written on the documents.
“Blueprints? Contracts? Aren’t these important?” Even Sharle, with her sheltered upbringing, could tell at a glance that these were precious documents. Perhaps Xenophon had been made workshop chief by some sort of mistake, but surely his talents were so great that they compensated for his weaknesses. At least, that was the favorable way Sharle decided to interpret it as she continued to clean the room.
Just as she’d finally cleaned the floor to the point of walkability and moved on to the bookshelves, a man who looked to be in his fifties popped in wearing a dirty, chemical-soaked set of work clothes.
“Ah, seeing a girl toil away like that reminds me of the old days.”
The distinctive man with an unkempt head of salt-and-pepper hair, a face full of stubble, and thick, rimless glasses was none other than Xenophon, the workshop chief. His appearance suggested that he was perhaps better at hands-on work than reigning as the master of his own castle. Few in his position would ever emit the same chemical stench.
He’s a good man, but… The suspicions Xenophon inspired in others overpowered his virtues.
“Yes, and she cleaned the rooms just as you’re doing now.” He seemed moved as he stroked his beard.
“Does she still work here?”
“No, she passed away fifteen years ago.”
That means… The deceased craftswoman must have been attacked by the Titan that had invaded Shiganshina District. Xenophon would not have specified the number of years otherwise.
Fifteen years ago, the workshop city wasn’t functional yet, and workshops were scattered among different towns. Xenophon and the woman in question must have worked together in the Shiganshina District workshop.
“She may be gone now, but her spirit is alive and well,” the chief said. Trekking down the trail blazed by Sharle, he headed to the shelf that held the mysterious apparatus. It seemed to be something he was proud of, and his eyes glimmered like an innocent child’s.
“What is that?”
“It’s the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.”
“The Vertical Maneuvering Equipment?”
“I guess you could call it the only machine capable of matching the Titans.”
“Is that some sort of successor to the Equipment?”
“That’s about right.”
Satisfied with the explanation, Sharle looked closely at the machine that sat on the shelf, but she had no idea whatsoever of how it worked. Considering what the Equipment had been able to do though, it was easy to imagine that the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment was an astonishing breakthrough.
The Equipment was the invention used to defeat a Titan for the first time. That would mean the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment was capable of even more. As she observed its parts, she noticed an inscription that appeared to refer to a celestial spirit.
“ANGEL?”
“It’s pronounced ‘an-hel.’ The man who developed the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.”
“And the one who created the Equipment, right?”
“And also my rival. He should have been made workshop chief, but he decided to retire, of all things. Yes, he was having trouble with his eyes, but still, how unfortunate.” Xenophon slumped his shoulders, either lamenting the absence of his rival or exhausted by the burdens of being workshop chief. Possibly both. “But it was surely the right decision. It wouldn’t have been easy to outdo himself after inventing the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment.”
“So he went out on top?”
“Well, he left one hell of a parting gift.”
“Is that so?”
“There’s such a thing as a machine’s controls being too responsive. What good is a steed that no one can master?” Xenophon sighed as he pushed his glasses back up with his index finger. “You think this guy you’re waiting for can tame it?” he threw out, watching for Sharle’s reaction.
I’m happy they’re saving Kuklo, but… Carlo and Jorge were planning to recruit Kuklo. They weren’t so stingy as to stipulate any conditions in exchange for their help, but considering his debt to the two, Kuklo seemed likely to go along with them. In fact, he might do so quite eagerly.
Of course, that worry could wait until his safe return.
“Oh, it’s nothing to get worked up about. If Carlo and Jorge, two generations of commanders, see something in him, he’ll surely make it back fine.”
“If you say so…” Sharle, who knew quite well how dangerous it was outside the walls, couldn’t bring herself to trust Xenophon’s reasoning. How could she stay calm? If he came across a Titan, it would be over.
The daring plan to pluck Kuklo up from outside the walls had already been set into motion. If everything had gone smoothly, they would be reunited in a matter of hours. She only wished she had some way of knowing.
“For now, we just have to wait,” advised Xenophon. “You don’t have to agree with me, but you do believe he’ll return alive, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall wait and believe, too. For our ultimate challenger to return.” Xenophon grinned. “I can’t wait to see the path he draws across the sky,” he said, taking the Vertical Maneuvering Equipment from the shelf.
“Challenger”?! There was something disquieting about the word, but Sharle willed herself not to mind. After all, she couldn’t imagine any misfortune worse than his latest ordeal visiting Kuklo.
Forcing herself to feel satisfied, Sharle wielded her broom and got back to cleaning the office.