There were several reasons to target the mining town of Jade.
First, the cult needed mines and coalfields to expand its military strength.
Second, I wanted a real battlefield to gauge Celestia’s true capabilities. The latter was the main reason the heretics decided to launch what they were calling the Jade Occupation Operation.
Our operation party would consist of a set number of believers, including Whip and me, as well as Joanne, Stella, and Celestia.
Two special units were scheduled to participate this time.
The first was the Hidden Insect Corps, a unit of inhuman soldiers who’d taken in parasites and turned themselves into something else entirely. The second was the Raid Unit, commanded by fellow executive candidate Gerugoroi Workforce.
Unlike the insect-people, the Raid Unit was supposedly a group of humans who’d honed their swordsmanship to the extreme on a hundred different frontlines. In other words, they were still within the bounds of human logic. Probably.
We had almost no concrete intel on the Raid Unit, but with only five days left before the Jade operation began, I couldn’t afford to wait any longer.
I called Joanne and Alex in and laid out the outline of my real plan: the destruction of the Northeastern Branch and the complete annihilation of both the Hidden Insect Corps and the Raid Unit.
“That’s, uh… pretty wild. Hardcore kind of plan, huh?” Alex said, rubbing a hand over his shaved head.
Putting the day’s events simply:
We’d use the fighting in the mining town of Jade as cover. In the chaos, we’d wipe out the Hidden Insect Corps and the Raid Unit, then I’d team up with Joanne to finish off the last one standing—Stella.
On paper, it sounded impossible.
From my point of view, though, the odds of success were actually pretty high.
First of all, Jade was a tough nut to crack.
According to the soldiers who’d gone ahead for reconnaissance, the outer walls were far more solid than anything in Metasim or Daskel, and they had way more soldiers stationed there, too.
And whether they realized it or not, any major Orthodoxy city by now should have serious defensive magic and magical infrastructure woven into it.
One example was something called the Fixed-Line Communicator.
Orthodox executive rank six, Known Tilti, possessed plant-controlling magic. The Fixed-Line Communicator was a device that used Known’s roots, reaching through the earth, to link cities. Blossoms served as the voice input and output points, enabling long-distance communication.
Even ordinary people could use these communicators, which were scattered across the cities like phone booths. Naturally, input and output flowers were also installed at outer gates and in garrisons, so if anything unusual happened, the information would spread quickly to other cities.
Metasim out on the frontier was probably just unlucky. It must’ve been attacked before the system was fully deployed. After that ambush, they’ve almost certainly rolled it out to every city.
There was no way the Orthodox side had just sat on their hands after being forced to abandon Metasim and Daskel.
Almost certainly, they’d taken those losses to heart and reinforced every town with defensive spells and magical infrastructure.
It’s been over a month since the incidents in Daskel and Metasim. After the first large-scale offensive by the cult in history, the Orthodoxy’s entire mindset has probably shifted.
Another likely defensive measure that came to mind was the Anti-Magic Flower-Stems.
It was a colossal plant that spread out like an umbrella over the sky and outer rim of a city, detecting high-speed flying objects and hostile magical attacks in the area around it.
Of course, developing a weapon like that took both money and time. If it hadn’t already been designed and approved, there was no way it could be deployed in the first place.
And the thing that practically neutralized all these defensive systems… was the Mobile Fortress Plan.
This time, because they wanted to test Celestia’s power and structure the operation around the Hidden Insect Corps and the Raid Unit, it had been decided that there was no need to transport any flesh fragments. But honestly… looking back on it, what we’d done was insane.
What was done was done, though. No use dwelling on it. I pulled myself together and turned to Joanne.
“This time, I’m just a side character, huh?” she said.
“Right. If my betrayal gets exposed, that’s a completely different story. Taking into account the risk of witnesses escaping and what happens if we fail, your role, Joanne-sama, will be limited to the final showdown underground.”
The biggest risk in staging an internal revolt was that people who’d been treated as allies up until now would suddenly flip into enemies. Once our rebellion came to light, we could expect retribution so horrific it was better not to imagine it at all.
And right now, Joanne’s position was absurdly valuable. If possible, I wanted her by Aros’s side for as long as we could arrange it.
Because of the whole Karatena situation, I’d already arranged things so I’d be the one to shoulder all the blame for the coming chaos. I’d bear the “great sin” of having destroyed one wing of the cult, and then run.
I’d disappear from both camps, hiding from the Orthodoxy and the heretics alike, while staying in contact with Joanne and Alex and waiting for the right moment to strike back. As far as I could tell, that was the best plan available to us.
What I hadn’t predicted was just how many believers already suspected me. Rather than Karatena starting the fire herself, it’d probably be more accurate to say there were already embers smoldering everywhere, and she just fanned them into an inferno.
I’d heard it even during my training with Whip. The rumors about me had already spread everywhere. My image had flipped completely: from rising star to infamous executive killer.
From here on out, my reputation would only plummet further. In the end, it was just a question of when, not if.
And yeah, if someone asked whether I found Karatena an eyesore, I’d probably nod hard enough to snap my own neck.
“Alex,” I said. “Has Karatena been acting weird lately?”
“She’s been doing nothing but weird stuff, senpai. Totally obsessed with spreading rumors about you and adding extra spice to every retelling,” Alex replied.
“That’s not what I mean. Karatena looks like she’s turned herself into an insect person.”
“Eh!? So even Karatena’s taking that sort of gamble. Wow.”
Judging from what happened that day when she spat on me, Karatena had to have taken a parasite into her body.
From the way she was back then, I’d guess she was in the stabilization phase. It’d be a little while yet before she fully adapted to the insect and could squeeze out any real monstrous strength.
Why go so far, risking death itself, just to become an insect-person?
If I assume she was afraid of how fast I was growing and grabbed at the parasite out of desperation, I guess that does make a twisted kind of sense.
A few days prior, Whip had given us a tour of the breeding yard. Thinking back, even through her permanent scowl, Karatena’s interest had been obvious.
So that’s what that look was about?
I didn’t know the exact details, but with my insecticide ready, her choice actually worked in my favor.
I planned to kill her in Jade anyway; no point wasting concern on her now.
The other problem is that Joanne might not obediently go along with the script.
Right now, Joanne occupied an insanely convoluted position.
She was a member of the cult’s side, yet aiming to wipe out both Orthodoxy and heresy alike, so she could walk away as the last one standing. There was no need to spell out how unusual that was.
If this operation went well, the cult would lose its brawler-type executive, Stella, setting Celestia aside for the moment.
From Joanne’s perspective, her real aim was to slip in and steal everything after both sides had worn each other down. She shouldn’t want to see the cult weakened too much.
Or so I’d thought.
In reality, Joanne was surprisingly enthusiastic.
Maybe Stella was simply too dangerous as raw combat power… or maybe she was just too annoying as a romantic rival.
I had Alex haul a certain device and quietly slip it in among the supplies prepared for the Jade Occupation Operation.
With that, I figured our preparations were complete and turned in early, only for Joanne to come running up, a little out of breath.
“Just now, Celestia passed along a message,” she said.
“And what kind of message would that be?” I asked.
“The details aren’t set yet, but apparently they’re drawing up a plan to invade Sasfect and steal the Holy Relic.”
The cocky confidence she’d always had as someone above me in rank was nowhere to be seen; Joanne’s face looked genuinely uneasy. And I couldn’t blame her. The moment the term Holy Relic came up, I felt my own stomach knot.
In the original story, the battle over the Holy Relic didn’t break out until somewhere between the mid and late arc.