Chapter 199: After Death Part 7

Jeff would often spar with Dietrich whenever he had the time.

But except for the very beginning, the outcome was always the same.

Dietrich’s victory and Jeff’s crushing defeat.

“Ah, I lost again.”

“You’ve improved a lot though.”

“And you’ve become even more perfect.”

Jeff, who had already experienced 164 losses out of 174 matches, muttered tiredly.

He wasn’t weak by any means. He too was a survivor of the Cradle.

But the wall of true talent was insurmountable.

Dietrich had effortlessly absorbed the hard-earned experience Jeff had nearly died to obtain during his year in the Cradle.

There seemed to be no way to defeat him.

“Let’s go again.”

Still, Jeff didn’t give up. Even with repeated defeats, he was growing too.

He had never aimed to be the strongest.

His goal had always been just one thing.

“I need to become strong enough to at least protect Melana.”

To protect just one person. That’s what Jeff had decided to dedicate everything to.

“Um, I’ve been wondering for a while… Are you and Senior Melana, you know… dating?”

“No.”

“Wha…? You’re not?”

Dietrich was too shocked to speak.

No matter how socially oblivious and lacking in tact Dietrich might be, even he could clearly see Jeff’s consistent affection.

Even Helena, who knew little about love, assumed the two were a couple.

“Uh, I’m sorry. I just thought for sure you had feelings for Senior Melana.”

“I do like her. But… I can’t exactly confess in a situation like this, can I?”

A confession made in a situation where you’re forced to rely on each other….it’s almost like coercion.

That’s why Jeff maintained a clear boundary.

“Hmm…”

Dietrich felt a chill run down his spine.

He now felt like anything he said would be a landmine.

There was no path forward in this conversation that didn’t involve stepping on one.

Thankfully, Jeff defused the tension himself.

“Alright, shall we start again? You’ve rested enough, right?”

“Yes!”

Jeff only wished to protect.

He expected nothing in return. A pure conviction.

From Jeff, Dietrich learned what it meant to have the heart of a true knight.

***

Elsewhere, Lobelia was browsing through the imperial archive’s records of historical awakened abilities.

She was doing it as a favor to Johan.

Though she had said she’d “look into it if she had time”, in truth, she had set aside other tasks to begin her investigation.

After all, he had played a major role in the recent Lemegeton subjugation.

Granting a small request like this was the least she could do.

“Hmm…”

However, the search was not going well.

Even if two awakened abilities were similar, there were always individual differences between users. Sometimes minor, sometimes significant.

Naturally, this meant the volume of records was massive.

To pinpoint a single ability within that vast trove was no simple task.

As she moved between shelves, skimming through volumes…

“Oh my.”

Lobelia shivered at the sound of a voice behind her.

Only members of the imperial family were allowed in the imperial archives.

And every single one of them had a screw loose.

So Lobelia was anything but pleased by the presence of another imperial.

“Lobelia, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you reading.”

“First Princess Lapis.”

“Hmm… That’s much too stiff. I’d prefer you call me something more familiar.”

A person as radiant as a blooming field of flowers.

Lobelia instinctively stepped back at Lapis’s light, graceful steps.

She hadn’t even flinched in front of Loki, but this time was different.

Lapis was the most mysterious of the imperials.

All imperial members were mad in their own way.

Theseus, Loki, Lobelia….they each had their own flavor of madness.

Theseus was obsessively fixated on goodness to the point of madness.

Loki had discarded human emotion in pursuit of the throne.

Even Lobelia who was arguably the most human of them all clearly had her own peculiarities.

Yes, life in the imperial family demanded that one go mad over something just to survive.

But the woman standing before her… was different.

“Looking for something?”

“No, uh…”

“Still being all awkward? What, do I look like I’m going to eat you or something?”

Lapis had… nothing.

She had simply lost a screw one day. No incident, no warning. She just snapped.

A madwoman in the purest sense of the word.

That was who Lapis was.

But that alone wasn’t reason enough for Lobelia to be on guard.

A person losing their mind wasn’t necessarily something to fear.

No…what made Lobelia wary was the fact that Lapis, despite her madness, was still alive… and living an ordinary life.

Lobelia didn’t understand Lapis.

More precisely, she couldn’t, no matter how much she investigated.

In a way, Lapis felt like a person at the very center of a miracle.

She would walk out unscathed from incidents that should’ve been fatal.

Like stepping out from a building completely engulfed in flames without a single trace of soot on her, or falling off a cliff only to stroll into the imperial palace the next day as if nothing had happened.

Her very existence was a mystery.

And nothing is more terrifying than the unknown.

“Hmm? What is it? What is it? Tell me!”

“……”

Lapis bore no malice.

That’s why everyone finds her unsettling but leaves her alone.

A big reason for that was also the fact that, unlike the other imperial members, she was completely removed from the line of succession.

Someone so clearly shut away in her own world couldn’t possibly have a political faction behind her.

Lobelia, feeling unsettled, decided to give a vague answer.

“I was just studying awakened abilities for a bit.”

“Oh! I see! Want me to help?”

“No, that’s quite alright.”

“Don’t be like that. Which ability are you looking for? What are you curious about?”

“……”

Just as expected…unsettling.

Lobelia had simply said she was studying awakened abilities, but Lapis spoke as if she knew Lobelia was searching for a specific one.

Was it a coincidence?

Or was this also part of Lapis’s strange, otherworldly powers?

“Oh, I see! Thought splitting, huh…? If that’s it, leave it to me!”

“……?”

Lobelia tilted her head. Something felt… off.

Did I ever say what I was looking for?

It was like a piece of time had been cut out, and the conversation had jumped ahead.

Something was clearly strange, yet Lobelia’s mind remained unusually calm.

Feeling only a slight bewilderment, she gave a small nod.

“But Lobelia, I’m kinda hurt, you know? If that’s what you were curious about, you could’ve just come to me from the beginning.”

“…Huh?”

“Huh? You didn’t know? I have the [Thought Splitting] ability too.”

“O… Oh… Do you…?”

As if this were just another ordinary moment in daily life.

Even though it was a situation that called for caution, at some point, Lobelia found herself being swept along by Lapis’s atmosphere.

“Alright! Come on, ask away. I’ll answer anything. Lobelia.”

Lapis asked with a bright smile, like a flower blooming in a field.

“What are you curious about?”

***

Peace, surprisingly, feels unfamiliar.

I’ve been enjoying peace since the Lemegeton subjugation, but that in itself feels unsettling.

“Something should be blowing up by now…why is it so peaceful?”

Have I finally gone mad?

It’s only been a week since that incident, yet I already feel out of place.

Is this how last year’s cradle students felt?

Something should be happening, but when nothing does, it feels even more off.

Something… something must be going on! I need to find it fast and take care of it!

“You can be discharged now.”

“Yes.”

I was discharged along with the others who had fought beside me against Lemegeton and ended up in the hospital.

Just thinking about going back to class starting tomorrow is already exhausting.

Anyway, what should I do now? It was easy when I was lying in the hospital without a care, but now that I’ve been given full freedom, I don’t know what to do with it.

Normally, I would’ve hung out with Yuna, but these days, she was busy studying nonstop under Olga Hermod’s watch.

And going back to that Misfit group now felt kind of awkward too.

“…Maybe I should run a quick check.”

Training Helena.

Shutting myself in the library to study.

Stopping by the workshop for the first time in a while.

All kinds of options floated through my head, but the strongest urge pulling at me right now was something else.

“I should try controlling this cursed sword.”

The cursed sword that Professor Georg had left as a get-well gift during his hospital visit.

The sword itself was a bit frightening, but either way, its performance had to be solid and to confirm that, I needed to try using it.

If a worst-case scenario happened and I couldn’t draw out the sword’s power, that would be a problem in itself.

***

When I arrived at the training grounds, I immediately drew the screaming sword and repeated a few practice swings until I discovered one major issue.

“It’s got great strengths, but some drawbacks too…”

First of all, the sword’s performance was beyond question. Its durability went without saying, and its cutting power was extraordinary.

And the jaw strength of the mouth attached to the blade exceeded anything I’d imagined.

Surprisingly, despite its appearance, the sword was also quite easy to handle. Almost as if it respected the will of its user.

However…

“This thing’s a mana-eating monster.”

The consumption rate was no joke.

Of course, if I thought of it as a high-risk, high-return weapon, it wasn’t a huge problem.

As long as I was aware that it was draining my mana during battle, I should be fine.

But the real issue was that I wasn’t powering sword energy with just my own mana.

Unlike the mana being drained from my body, the depletion of the magic engineering battery wasn’t easy to sense.

The moment that battery ran dry in the middle of combat, the power of my sword strikes would plummet.

And that would lead to disastrous consequences.

“Hmm…”

Ha, seriously… I didn’t want to rely on her like this, but I kept finding myself doing it.

I knew she was already busy, and I wasn’t sure if it was okay to keep asking for her help…

“I’ll have to ask Emily.”

There was no helping it.

Most of my strength came from Emily’s support.

At some point, I’d become someone who couldn’t function without her inventions.

***

The next day.

It was when I passed along my request to Emily, whom I hadn’t seen in class for a while.

“Then, big brother, come over to my house after school today.”

“Huh? Really?”

“There’s no one home today.”

“…Watch your choice of words. Someone else might get the wrong idea.”

Especially someone like me. I was in a particularly risky position.

“What do you mean?”

“No, just… never mind.”

Explaining it would only make things worse.

Why was I giving another family’s kid a crash course in basic manners anyway?

And if things got awkward after the explanation, how was I supposed to deal with that?

“Yuna, just to be clear. This really isn’t what it sounds like.”

“Johan, Yuna’s not here yet.”

“Oh.”

“Did something happen?”

“No, nothing at all.”

I’d just assumed she was watching, but apparently not.

A classic case of the guilty conscience speaking first.

“Johan Damus likes girls. Got it. I’ll remember that.”

“What is wrong with you?”

This bastard just pops out from time to time and makes me anxious.

***

After school.

I arrived at the Robinhood family mansion, feeling strangely awkward.

Of course, when they said no one was home, they meant no family members.

Naturally, with a mansion this big, there was no way there wouldn’t be any servants.

I gave a slight nod to the guard who opened the door and stepped inside.

“This way, please.”

Was it because it was her own home? Or just because it was something she was interested in?

Emily’s steps seemed lighter and more cheerful than usual.

“This is my workshop.”

Emily proudly opened the door and showed me her workshop.

I’d expected it, but still…

“The vibe’s… unique.”

It was an ultra-modern facility that felt completely out of place in this world.

Actually, even on modern-day Earth, it’d be hard to find technology like this.

Not that I really understood any of it… but just seeing the humanoid android moving on two legs was impressive enough.

“So, could you show me the sword?”

“Here. Just be careful. It could go off.”

I handed the cursed sword to Emily, giving her a few words of warning.

Shiiing.

Emily drew the sword.

“This might be too much for me to handle on my own. It’s just not my field of study…”

“Ah.”

Maybe I’d been overestimating Emily all along.

Come to think of it, she was only a pioneer in magic engineering.

It was unreasonable to expect her to have any real expertise in bio-alchemy as well.

“This is probably going to be impossible without Babel’s help.”

“Babel? You mean… one of Ex Machina’s executives?”

“Yes.”

The executives of Ex Machina. The Gears.

Each of them is literally given the name of a gear.

Emily, as the Helical Gear, leads the field of magic engineering.

That would mean Babel Gear is the one who leads in bio-alchemical research.

As expected of Professor Georg.

He wasn’t invited to the Cradle for nothing.

To think he created something that only an Ex Machina executive could even begin to handle…

But who is this Babel Gear, anyway? Did they ever appear in the game?

Clack!

While I was lost in thought, one of the machines Emily had shoved into a corner suddenly stirred.

That feeling…it wasn’t unfamiliar.

“Don’t tell me… the scriptwriter?”

– That’s right, it’s me. You seemed to be looking for Babel, so I thought I’d let you know.

“Isn’t this a bit of a privacy violation?”

– Becoming part of Ex Machina means sharing your research with me. What’s the problem? I’m offering my wisdom personally, you know.

Still the same as ever.

With a self-centered mindset like that, life must be pretty comfortable.

– Anyway, about Babel. I wouldn’t recommend meeting her.

“Why not?”

– Because she’s not in her right mind.

“That’s the same for all members of Ex Machina…”

I trailed off, glancing at Emily standing beside me.

No matter what, it didn’t feel right lumping her in with the lunatics.

– Well, sure, everyone’s got a fragment of genius in them. Even you. But…

The Scriptwriter continued, as if the thought unsettled him.

– The current Babel Gear….or in other words, First Princess Lapis is different. She’s something… incomprehensible. Even I hesitate to make contact with her.