Chapter 3
Part 3
The morning sun burned the stark image of the tower's shadow into the ground. The southern autumn wind gently brushed over the grass, and it waved in return. Had it not been for the circumstances, one might be expected to draw the connection between the idyllic scenery and the creation of the Princesses.
However, there were in fact such circumstances.
Thanks to my building exhaustion, I felt like I might melt like a vampire under the sunlight. In reality, the stereotypical weakness to sunlight of vampires and other bloodsucking species was not so universal, but nonetheless I had given the morning sun a healthy dose of resentment when I made my way back to the Tower of the Sun.
In order to relieve even a small fraction of my exhaustion if possible, I returned Trimmau to her suitcase, and after the application of my usual eyedrops I plopped unceremoniously onto the foot of my bed.
The cold walls of my room felt entirely different from the day before.
That wasn't entirely unexpected. This was the living place of a magus, after all. More than just the fact that friendly relations had broken down, it was more like the environment itself had become a formidable opponent of its own, and the result was a formless pressure weighing down on me. The room held a veritable chill, as if it had been transformed into the organ of some sort of giant.
It was sort of like the phenomenon of seeing faces in the stains and spots of an ordinary wall.
Scientifically speaking, the human brain perceives triangular shapes as faces - this so-called Simulacrum Phenomenon was even put to use by modern digital cameras to recognize faces, but magecraft could also exploit such weaknesses of the mind. Using the bare minimum of magical energy to produce the absolute maximum effect, wrenching open an otherwise guarded mind with mundane psychology. It was said to be the fundamental technique of magecraft such as Curses.
In the same vein, similar techniques of self-suggestion to transform oneself into a "system that creates mysteries" were foundational to magecraft in general. As such, it was common for a magus' Workshop to include features to trigger such phenomena.
(...letting my mind wander off all on its own again...)
Gently, I shook my head.
My thoughts wandering every which way was a sure sign of the tiredness I felt. I didn't even have the energy to maintain focus on the task at hand.
"...Miss Reines, what will you do now?"
"Hmm. Well, I've taken some measures for insurance already. As for us..."
As I started to speak, I was interrupted by a cute growling sound. I looked up to see Gray embarrassedly pressing down on her own stomach, reminding me that we had yet to even eat breakfast.
"...well for starters, I suppose we should eat something, no?"
"...r-right. But we can't really accept breakfast from Iselma at a time like this, can we?"
"Though I did ask for some tea and scones already. Well, if you want to refrain from eating their food, how about this?"
Saying that, I pulled a number of bottles out from my suitcase. I then spread some liver pâté on top of a emergency ration biscuit, added a few pickles, and finished it off with another biscuit on top. The trick was to spread the pâté just a bit thicker than was reasonable. Even if it was somewhat unsightly, as long as the quality of the pâté was good, it could be relied on to be delicious.
In addition,
"Trim."
"Yes, Master."
At the same time, I had the Mercury Maid prepare some tea. Using the mineral water we had brought with us, she transformed one of her hands into the shape of a teapot, and set the water within it to boiling. Yes, it was quite convenient. As an aside, simulating heat energy with magic circuits like mine was somewhat challenging, so Trimmau's teapot hand also included the fuel of an alcohol lamp to heat the water.
After adding some leaves to the boiling water, the room quickly filled with the pleasant scent of tea.
"Miss Reines, do you always have something like this ready...?"
"Most of the time, I guess."
Before ascending to the place of El-Melloi, everyday life had actually been a flight from death for me. As such, carrying around the bare minimum of emergency food supplies had become somewhat of a habit. I can't say I had imagined it would be useful in a situation like this, however.
As Trimmau poured out the tea, I arranged the pâté sandwiches on some napkins.
"There you are. Please, go ahead."
"...ah. Thank you. Thank you for today's blessings."
Cutting the shape of a cross in the air, Gray quickly set into the sandwiches. Despite the biscuits not being all that large in the first place, she took her time eating them, as if to enjoy every moment of flavour. I also began to sip from the tea Trimmau had prepared.
The fragrance of the tea pushed right through the exhaustion that filled my head. After having finished half of the drink, I added a healthy dose of milk and sugar. Normally I would drink the entire first cup straight, but right now my brain was desperate for the energy.
Closing my eyes, I waited for the food to slowly settle in the bottom of my stomach.
As my heart regained its calm, I felt my thoughts return to their normal form.
"Now, as for the Princess of Gold..."
As I reached for a biscuit of my own, a shrill voice suddenly filled the room.
"Ihihihihihi! Looks like another murder mystery, huh? It's almost like you're possessed or something! Well, of course you're possessed. As the finest of gravekeepers in all of England, it's inevitable that you'd end up cursed by all the magi around you!"
In response to the ill omen spoken by an equally unpleasant voice, I felt a smile rise to my face as I nodded to Gray.
"...Miss Reines."
"Go ahead, Gray."
After hearing my permission, with the sharp sound of a hook being released, a bird cage like object dropped into view at Gray's right hand. The strange looking box within the cage, marked with clear eyes and a mouth, quickly snapped its gaze between Gray and I.
"Huh? Wait...Gray, there's no way...Wait please calm down I'm sorry stop Reines I'm sorry!"
"...stop talking so much."
Though delivered without expression, there was only one action that could follow Gray's words. Holding the cage in one hand, she violently shook the cage up and down.
"Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!"
The scream, like the lament of a sinner rising up from Hell, filled the room. In truth, it wasn't really enough to satisfy the urges I felt, but it would have to do.
After listening to that scream for a good while, I nodded, and Gray stopped her hand. Inside the cage, the strange box-shaped contraption was left with its eyes spinning.
"...uurrgh...you monster..."
That resentful voice was a good partner to the flavour of the pâté.
From there, I dropped my gaze. From inside Trimmau's suitcase was coming a knocking sound, a warning sound I had prepared beforehand.
"Thank you for gracing us with your invaluable opinion. Anyways, Gray. I'd like to continue our conversation from earlier, but it appears that we have a guest."
"...okay."
With a single smooth motion, the caged face disappeared into Gray's cloak, just as the door to the room swung open.
"Mind if I come in?"
"Can't say I'm a fan of your impoliteness," I replied, narrowing my eyes slightly.
Close-cut hair, along with a well-muscled body. Taking another sip of tea, I tried to remember the man's name.
"Mick Grajilie, was it?"
"Indeed!" With a one-eyed regard, the dark-skinned man confirmed his identity as one of the three remaining Meluastea magi.
"And how might we help you?"
"You guys didn't hear some bizarre screaming a second ago, did you? It sounded like a stray cat being thrown around in a cage or something."
"Sounds like you're imagining things."
I threw Gray a calm look, telling her to stand down. Believe it or not, Gray was the first to adopt an aggressive stance in situations like these. To say she was raised in an environment that rivalled even the Clock Tower in its harshness was no exaggeration. In that sense, I sometimes got the impression that Gray was like a long lost little sister of mine, the two of us separated while still young. Not that I had asked to find out which of us was actually older.
"Really?" the man said, stretching a hand out to his side and drawing some sort of symbol in the air. It seemed suspiciously familiar to something I had seen in a lecture on Tantric Buddhism.
"
"
A coarse sound rang out through the room, and with it I felt magical energy hang over the room like a veil. While it certainly didn't seem to be harmful, I wasn't about to let someone just throw magecraft out in front of me like that.
"And what exactly are you doing?"
"Gotta at least set up a bounded field, right? You can never tell who's listening in."
Nodding to himself, he made an exaggerated bow.
"As you can see, my magecraft is a self taught form of Tantric Yoga. I have a pretty bad family line, so there's a lot mixed into it. Now, I've shown my hand a little bit, so could you at least show me a little bit of trust too?"
"...so in short, you have something to talk about you don't want other people to hear?"
"Haha, well yeah, something like that," he replied with a smirk.
It was a smile that I had learned to hate, something I had seen countless times since I was young - something that had changed into something quite different recently - a smile that didn't reach below the surface.
Placing a finger on his lips, he whispered. "Actually, I'm kind of a spy."
"...what?"
Hearing it said so bluntly, I could feel my expression freeze midway. Without dropping his smile, Mick continued.
"From the beginning, the reason I came to this gathering was to check things out at the request of a certain bigshot."
Well, that wasn't so farfetched.
The political struggle within the Clock Tower was endlessly complicated. The existence of double and even triple agents wasn't that out of the ordinary. It was the natural result of Source Crest families going through painstaking effort to reduce the chances of betrayal by their branch families as much as possible.
"So, what business does Mr. Spy have with me?"
"I want to offer you a deal, as Princess of the El-Melloi."
"With me? And now, of all times?" I replied, showing as much caution as I could muster. After all, for a faction as weak as the current El-Melloi, carelessly getting wrapped up in a deal with a single spy was enough to blow us completely out of the water.
However, what followed next was far from what I had predicted.
"Will you help us finish off the Iselma family?"
*************
His droll voice, coupled with the undeniably serious message, echoed throughout the room.
The destruction of Iselma.
It was nothing less than a declaration of war on Valueleta, one of the three great families.
Together with the death of the Princess of Gold, it was a single move likely to ensnare the entire Clock Tower in a morass of war. And as he said it, that preposterous proposal was uttered by a man who said the whole thing laughing like a fool.
"...Miss Reines..."
Behind me, even Gray's voice held a faint tremble. Even she, who couldn't really be called a magus, instantly grasped the madness that lay behind those words. The girl gulped, as if she had just heard someone casually utter the words of a curse meant to bring the whole world to its knees.
Pulling Trimmau's suitcase over to myself, I gave a cautious reply.
"...what are you talking about?"
"Just what it says on the tin," Mick replied with a shrug.
Completely lacking any sort of shyness or reservation, the man who had casually announced himself as a spy locked his eyes on me. Within that expression rich with humour, his eyes alone held no laughter - eyes like a scientist watching a guinea pig mid-experiment.
Meeting his gaze, I replied.
"So are you admitting to the crime, then?"
"Oh, no no no," he shook his head with another laugh. "That was all just coincidence. Really, I swear. I never expected the Princess of Gold to meet such a...gruesome end."
Hanging his head as if the words depressed him, he nonetheless continued.
"However, once the coincidence has occurred, necessity slips in. The fact that the Princess of Gold has died is a simple fact now. Any future action has to take that premise into account. Like, for example. For example, I mean, what if the aristocratic El-Melloi faction wanted to see Valueleta weakened?"
With that, Mick's words had stepped too far.
Speaking so frankly of something that would normally have to be subtly sniffed out without words. Was he looking down on me since I was so young? Or was this just brute force levelled against a faction of a much lower standing? Probably both.
In the back of my mind, a number of thoughts had arisen. With a small sigh, I replied.
"What is your goal, exactly?"
"My goal? I just said it, didn't I?"
In response to Mick's puzzled stare, I responded straight and clear.
"The Meluastea faction is supposedly neutral. It shouldn't matter one way or the other to you whether the Valueleta family finds itself weakened. In which case, it's perfectly ordinary to think that your objective lies somewhere else."
"...hahaha, I guess there's no fooling you after all," Mick said, clearing his throat in a forced way.
Really, there was no air of him trying to fool anybody. He was just trying to get us to repeat his conclusion. After all, humans had a habit of putting unreasonable trust in conclusions they had reached themselves. Whether or not he was trying to deceive us, it was clear he was trying to move the conversation along smoothly by making that premise clearly defined.
As such, his earlier statement about destroying the Iselma family was more about getting us to think clearly about it - to wring out our reaction to that choice. Whether it was saying absurd things like he was a spy, or his unbelievably laid back personality, it all made sense within the logic of this particular line of thought.
As if he had made certain of my own thinking, he spoke again with a satisfied smile.
"Actually, there's a certain Talisman I'd like to get my hands on."
Talisman, amulet, fetish. There were any number of names for it, but effectively it was a catalyst or object that held magical energy. Particularly powerful objects were used as Mystic Codes, or as the core of a ritual, and would determine the overall nature of it. However, due to the overall degredation of Mystery in the modern era, not only were the quality of such Talismans that one could obtain rather low, it was not uncommon for those that retained some sense of power to be valued at astronomical levels.
The Mystic Code that served as the core of Trimmau, the
Moon Spirit's Spinal Fluid
Volumen Hydrargyrum
, was such a Talisman. It could even be said that the amount of influence a given faction could bring to bear was equal to their ability to collect such high quality Talismans.
"So it's mixed with the blood of a certain Phantasmal Species..."
"I'm afraid I'll have to refuse," I said curtly.
Mick began waving his arms around in an exaggerated, pleading manner.
"Hey hey hey, shouldn't you at least hear me out a bit first? At the very least it'll be some good information for you, right?"
"I believe I've already heard enough to determine that I don't want to be involved."
"Haha, how prudent of you," he replied, scratching his hair with a bitter smile. "In that case, fine. It's not like I plan on twisting your arm or anything. I doubt you'll be spreading the news about my identity anyway."
"...because if we do, no doubt you'll 'discover' that we were the culprits here after all, am I right?"
From the start, it was hard to believe anyone would take me seriously if I just said that 'he told us he was a spy.' On top of that, we were already suspects in a murder investigation. Rather than 'innocent until proven guilty,' 'mutually assured destruction' was the best we could really hope for at this point.
"Glad you see it my way. See you around, then."
With an attitude as if to say, 'I'll get a different answer out of you next time,' Mick made his way out of the room.
A short while after that arrogant presence had vanished, I fell sideways on to the bed.
With both hands, I covered my face. My eyes were burning, and my eyelids were heavy. If I could just sink into the bed here and be buried alive, oh how happy I would be...
"...Miss Reines?"
"Hm?"
"Umm...if you dig your nails in like that, you're going to leave marks."
"...huh?"
Before I had realized it, my eyes were closed. Had I fallen asleep just by putting my hands over my face like that? I already felt completely settled in, and was covered in a cold sweat.
Judging by the angle of the sun peaking in through the window, it was still afternoon. It seemed like I had dozed off for about two hours. With a deep breath, I began massaging my cheeks.
"Marks, huh..."
I wasn't old enough to be truly concerned about it, but the day when I would have to start looking for magecraft to stave off the signs of ageing came was only a matter of time. The skills of those like Maio who we had met earlier, were often in great demand as long as they could put out results, so anti-aging had become a rather significant source of income for the
.
Thinking of that, I realized something.
Sitting up in bed, I began to mutter to myself.
"Miss Reines?"
"I just thought of something. If it's here, it might not be too late."
"Here?"
"Yes."
With a small nod, I felt my lips begin to curve into a smile.
"At the very least, we need to find some sort of clue."
Originally Posted by Rokudaime
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