“I never attacked you.”
“What? Oh, right. You’re correct. Strictly speaking, you didn’t manage to attack me.”
Since he got knocked out by Emily before he could even try anything.
So, I guess you could say he only meant to give me a verbal warning.
“Then I suppose this is just a toy?”
“Waaaaaaah!”
Click.
I aimed one of Immun’s personal belongings which was an obviously state-of-the-art firearm at his head and asked.
I wonder how powerful this thing is?
“I attacked you.”
“See? Isn’t it so much easier when we’re both honest?”
So let’s not make things more complicated with unnecessary lies.
“It’s not like I have any particular grudge against you. No hard feelings. I’d love to resolve things through conversation. Of course, I am going to confiscate this as compensation.”
“……”
Still, it’s quite interesting, you know?
Most Deus Ex Machina gear tends to be equipped with self-destruct mechanisms, but the Helical Gears don’t have anything like that.
Is it simply a matter of how you use them?
Or perhaps, if you’re capable of handling something as complex as a Helical Gear, you’re deemed worthy of using it?
Knowing Deus’s personality, it’s probably the latter.
Though of course, there was one exception for him. It was the First Princess Lapis.
Anyway, that’s not the important part right now.
“So, how do you use this thing? I can’t figure it out at all.”
“That’s…”
Immun seemed like he would resist a bit more, but surprisingly, he explained how to use the Geneva Gear quite neatly.
He gave up quickly. Or maybe it should be seen as his own sense of responsibility?
“…Did you really have no intention of attacking the other gears?”
“Not at all. The thought never even crossed my mind. In fact, I’ve always been the one getting attacked. Today as well.”
“I see. So it was my misunderstanding.”
“You nearly sent someone to the grave over a misunderstanding.”
“Kh… S-Sorry.”
“Well, it’s fine. I got compensation for it. Should I untie you?”
“You’re really going to let me go? Even though I tried to attack you?”
“Well, you seem like someone I can actually talk to, surprisingly. There are some things I want to ask you personally, and staying like this would only leave us both with bad feelings.”
Immun was a good person.
A little dense, perhaps, but he had something in common with Theseus.
“Ahem, w-well, that’s a bit much. Comparing me to Hero Theseus, haha.”
Seeing how happy he looked, it was obvious.
Personally, I didn’t like Theseus. He was frustrating to deal with, but Immun seemed to admire him.
His head was full of flowers too.
By now, it wasn’t even surprising.
Everyone affiliated with Deus Ex Machina always had a screw or two loose.
Immun was no exception.
“Johan! I’m here.”
“Oh, Yuna. You’re a bit late.”
Right after I freed Immun, Yuna, whom I had called through Emily, showed up.
“It’s been a while since I last looked for it, so I couldn’t remember where I left it.”
Thud!
Yuna dropped the bag she had brought with a heavy thump. Just from the sound, you could tell it was packed with something heavy.
“……”
Immun stared blankly at the ripped zipper on the bag, unable to withstand the weight.
Inside, it was filled with all sorts of torture tools.
“……”
Immun turned his gaze straight to me.
I saw a cold bead of sweat trickle down his cheek.
Well, those were just in case we couldn’t get through to him with words.
I had no intention of using them.
“Jeez, something that awful… Yuna, hurry up and put it away.”
“Huh? You managed to persuade him without torture?”
“Torture? You shouldn’t throw around such scary words like that. If things can be resolved through conversation, then of course you talk it out.”
“Mhm!”
There was no need for things to get nasty.
Even if the first meeting hadn’t gone well, there was no reason they couldn’t get along from now on.
Immun looked like a total pushover.
He might’ve been a bit old to be thrown in with a bunch of misfits, but Cattleya would surely find a good use for him.
“By the way, Immun. There are a few things I want to ask you.”
“I’ll answer anything.”
After seeing Yuna’s bag, Immun had become much more compliant.
To think someone this timid had shown up in front of me claiming he was here to save someone?
In a way, he was better than me.
“So, you said the Scriptwriter told you I’m a complete bastard.”
“He didn’t say it that harshly…!”
“Still, he clearly made me out to be a villain, didn’t he?”
“Ahem… Well, the Scriptwriter does like to joke a bit too much. It was my fault for not realizing that and acting on my own.”
“Isn’t the real issue just that the Scriptwriter is a damn bastard?”
“Hey! How can you say such a thing?!”
What the hell had Deus done for Immun to highly regard him?
He was just a foul-tempered old geezer as far as I was concerned.
“I’m sure he has his reasons.”
“Yeah, sure. Let’s go with that.”
This guy was going to get fooled again and again in the future.
Maybe Deus was just using him like a toy.
“So what’s that guy even doing lately? I haven’t been able to get in touch with him at all.”
“No idea.”
“But you said he contacted you to tell you I was a villain.”
“That was a while back. When I heard the Spur Gear had been attacked.”
Wait, it wasn’t even recent?
And on top of that, it was false information.
“And since then, you haven’t gotten any more messages?”
“I did get one message. Or… maybe it wasn’t exactly a message?”
“What was it?”
“Coordinates.”
Coordinates?
Could it be where the Scriptwriter was located?
Come to think of it, there was no reason Deus would invite only us.
He’d talked big about making me his successor when we were face-to-face, but I couldn’t take that at face value. That old geezer’s personality was way too rotten.
For all I knew, he might’ve been feeding the same sweet talk to other Helical Gears too, just to get us to fight each other.
The fact that Immun had attacked me right away made that possibility all the more likely.
“Did you calculate the coordinates?”
“Of course I did.”
“Was it near Creta?”
“No.”
No? Then what?
“It was the Veldani Mountains.”
“…The Veldani Mountains? Isn’t that a volcano?”
“That’s right.”
“Did you go?”
“The Veldani Mountains? Why would I go there just to get myself killed?”
Well, he had a point.
The Veldani Mountains were still an active volcano that erupted from time to time.
It had once been considered a sacred place for dwarves, but now it was just a big, abandoned volcano.
On top of that, with the Empire keeping a close watch on the area, getting in or out wasn’t easy.
Given the current chaos, maybe it was possible… but I still wouldn’t want to go out of my way.
“That guy didn’t look like a dwarf. Do you think he has some connection to them?”
In terms of technology, sure. He was dwarf-like.
Of course, with dwarves having gone extinct long ago, there was no way to know for sure.
“Veldani Mountains… What was there again?”
The fact that I remembered the name meant something had to be there.
I just wasn’t sure if it had anything to do with Deus Ex Machina.
“So, can I go now?”
“Ha! You think I’m gonna let that happen?”
I casually stopped Immun from trying to sneak off.
Like it or not, anyone from Deus Ex Machina was high-value.
And if they were one of the elite Helical Gears, even more so.
I could probably sell him to Cattleya for a high price.
She’d already been giving me side-eyes lately for only making her work. So tossing her a snack like this from time to time wasn’t a bad idea.
“Just meet one more person before you go. It’ll be helpful for you too. Emily? We have a guest. Show him the way.”
“Yes.”
I called Emily over.
Then, like a spider descending from the ceiling, Emily slowly came down riding a Helical Gear.
Her movements were just like a spider stalking its prey.
The pressure she gave off was no joke. Maybe it was because I’d just experienced her power firsthand.
“Should I head to Andvaranaut now?”
“Yeah. Say hi to Cattleya for me. Tell her I’ll be dropping by soon.”
“When exactly is ‘soon’?”
“Hmm… three days from now?”
“Alright, see you in three days then.”
Emily gave a slight bow, then left with the Helical Gear still aimed at Immun, as if warning him not to try anything.
“Wow, what a sly fox. Did you see the way she smoothly set up a date?”
“Yuna, what are you talking about?”
“It’s a girl thing. You don’t need to know, Johan. Don’t even try to figure it out.”
“…Okay.”
Not that I really wanted to know anyway.
I knew full well that opening Pandora’s box never ended well.
Still, to correct Yuna a little….Emily’s no fox.
…She’s more like a spider.
***
Winter dragged on.
By the time I’d gotten used to the civil support work in the cradle and wasn’t sure anymore whether I was a student or a soldier—
“There you are, Johan. If you slack off too much, you’re gonna get in trouble.”
“…Ariel?”
Ariel had come to visit in secret, wearing a hat and tinted glasses as a disguise.
“I’m not slacking off. I’m simply commanding the students.”
“And who gave you that role?”
“I did.”
I’d just started giving orders naturally, and no one complained. So I figured I’d take charge.
Honestly, it was more efficient that way.
The kids followed my lead without question, so it worked out for everyone.
“But aren’t you busy? Is it really okay for you to be here?”
“I’m busy, which is why I made time to come.”
Ariel is busy. Naturally. She was one of the key figures in this war.
She was showing her face around to reduce prejudice against beastkin, and being used as propaganda in dealings with the barbarians.
An elite beastkin born in a civilized nation that defeated the barbarian champion.
The image alone was enough to break the enemy’s morale.
In other words, she was fulfilling exactly the kind of goal the great warrior once dreamed of.
“Johan, to be honest, the reason I made time to come see you today is because I have a favor to ask.”
“So it wasn’t me you came to see.”
“Th-That’s… I’m sorry about that. I promise I’ll make time just for you later, so could you forgive me?”
“I was joking. What’s the favor? If it’s from you, Ariel, I’ll make it happen even if it’s a bit much.”
“…Even if it’s just words, thank you.”
She doesn’t believe me.
But I was actually being fairly sincere.
Honestly, the reason she’s going through all this is probably because I made a reckless promise.
Well, more fundamentally, it’s because of the engagement pushed by House Aether, but… in the end, I was the one who sold her out to survive.
Besides that, I’ve received plenty of help from her too. I guess you could call it a mutually beneficial relationship.
“Johan, do you know what Her Highness has been doing lately?”
“No idea.”
“She’s headed to the front lines and focusing on wiping out the barbarians.”
“Sounds like her usual self.”
“…It does. But to me, it looks like she’s pushing herself too hard.”
Hasn’t Lobelia always been the type to overdo it?
She’s the kind who dives into the mud and claws her way to victory.
She’s not the protagonist just because she’s strong. She’s the protagonist because she wins, no matter what.
But…
“Maybe because of all the recent defeats, she keeps driving herself harder and harder.”
“That’s…”
Yeah, I had a feeling.
But this was something that couldn’t be helped.
The real issue was that she had to face a final-boss-level opponent this early.
Compared to how it played out in the game, things had been pushed forward by at least two years.
There was no way she could win under those circumstances.
Even if the end result was technically a victory, to her, it was nothing but a string of defeats.
And the ones who handled the things she couldn’t… were always someone else.
During the Kult incident, it was Dietrich and Helena.
During the Tillis situation, it was Yuna.
And in the battle against Vidar, it was Ariel who finished things.
“Do you think she feels… inadequate?”
“No.”
Ariel answered with a bitter smile. As Lobelia’s friend, she would know things only she could understand.
“It’s responsibility.”
Responsibility. Yeah, that word probably described it better.
Lobelia was the kind of person who, rather than feeling powerless, would think she just needed to do better.
“So Johan, please.”
Ariel tilted her hat brim up slightly and looked up at me.
That slightly shy look of hers made me let out a wry smile.
If she did it without realizing, that was impressive.
And if she did mean to, then… well, it worked.
“Could you help Her Highness out a little?”
“…That’s a bit much.”
Of course, that’s a separate issue. Getting involved with Lobelia is a whole different problem.
To be honest, I don’t like getting tangled up with her.
She drags trouble with her wherever she goes.
It’s easy to forget because I’ve been caught up in all kinds of messes lately, but she’s the real trouble magnet here.
“So it was just talk, huh…”
Ariel frowned like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“…I’ll see what I can do.”
Didn’t think the bluff I made earlier would come back to bite me like this…
So this is what they mean by digging your own grave.
“Thanks, Johan. I love you.”
Ariel said it with a soft smile.
Well, after hearing something like that, I have to step up a little, don’t I?
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