Chapter 179: Episode (3)
Translator: KJ
An old mansion somewhere in the Empire.
'Yelena Yumanov', having survived the purge, sat on the balcony quietly drinking coffee. The wind blowing in from the east these days, for some reason, tasted of iron, as though soaked with blood.
─Clink.
When she set the cup down, the servant who had been on standby approached without a sound and inquired after her wishes. In a polite manner, asking whether to brew more coffee or take the cup away.
"Take it away."
The servant bowed her head and stepped back.
"..."
Yelena felt a strange sense of déjà vu watching her retreating figure. The servants of the mansion were all Easterners, either of the Sled race or mixed-blood.
Was it Maximilian's consideration, placing those of her own bloodline beside her to give her a sense of security, or was it to abide by the「Imperial Citizenship Law」, which forbade Aran from waiting upon inferior races?
Probably both.
"Hmm..."
Yelena's daily life now was free. Far more leisurely than the days when she had wielded power as Robrus's People's Commissar for Internal Affairs. Thanks to Maximilian's meticulous and considerate treatment, which left nothing to be desired.
─Step.
Suddenly, she sensed a presence behind her.
"You've come."
It was Schatz. Yelena handed her a stack of documents she had prepared in advance.
"I've organized all the military secrets and power dynamics of Robrus that I am privy to. Whether this information will be of any use to the Empire, I cannot say."
Robrus was in the middle of a purge, and the entire command structure could very well be replaced.
"The Knight will make that judgment."
Schatz tucked the thick documents away in her arms and asked.
"By the way, I heard you intend to return to the East."
"...Yes."
Yelena answered quietly.
"When I asked for a suitable false identity, he prepared one to perfection."
The most perfect disguise was to change one's very gender. Yelena, who had long undertaken mana training and physical conditioning, possessed a build and bone structure slender enough to pass convincingly as a man.
"How does it sound?"
Yelena lowered her voice, mimicking a man's tone.
"Wouldn't you say I'd been a man all along?"
"Yes. There's no incongruity at all."
At Schatz's words, Yelena gave a faint smile.
"For now, I plan to travel back and forth to the Eastern Alliance and work as a lawyer. The information I gather there should prove useful to all of you as well."
Schatz nodded.
"The Knight has ordered that you contact us by mana parchment whenever you require assistance."
"I will."
Suddenly, Yelena gazed intently at Schatz's face.
"By the way. Ms. Heizen, are you a Pure Aran?"
"...Yes."
Schatz answered curtly.
Pure Aran.
A bloodline that, in the past, had been simply taken for granted, or to which no meaning had been attached at all.
But these days, Schatz felt an indefinable pride in the fact that she was Aran.
Probably nearly every citizen of the Empire felt the same.
Even the lower classes lived holding tight to the fact that they were the great Aran of the Empire, carrying the conviction that they were better than the inferior races of east and west.
"A Pure Aran, with the family tree verified back to my great-grandparents."
Perhaps this was the society Maximilian desired.
* * *
Mason Industry's laboratory.
The information Senior Researcher Milo conveyed to me was as follows.
—A highly important test subject, apparently. In the past, she voluntarily participated in human experimentation, absorbed an enormous amount of the company's assets into her body, then violated trust and duty, ungratefully fled, and was recently recaptured. Now it's time to fulfill the temporarily suspended contract.
"What kind of experiment was it?"
At my question, Milo hesitated for a moment.
"...Well. I was just a college student back then. Anyway, going by what came down from above."
Milo didn't seem to know the details either. Then again, that human experimentation had been carried out at 'T24' from the start.
"From what I heard, it was an experiment that implanted circuits into ordinary people with no affinity for mana whatsoever, and injected Artificial Mana. With just that, the subject could wield mana on par with the average knight."
The reason Mason Industry was so obsessed with the 'Mana Engine'.
The truth was, the total amount of natural mana an individual human could handle was, compared to the output of a Mana Stone, exceedingly meager. The difference in sheer volume was impossible to overcome.
"The cost invested in that subject alone exceeds tens of millions."
The Empire's trains were powered by low-grade Mana Stones. For humans to move that same train, even dozens of high-ranking knights working in tandem would find it impossible without a 'catalyst'.
The Mana Engine was the alchemy born from precisely that point. The fusing of the human body with the power of a Mana Stone.
"Well then."
I looked through the glass at Elze, strapped to the restraint chair.
"All I have to do is analyze the Mana Wave the subject emits?"
"Yes. We'll handle the physical stimulation."
"Sounds fun."
"...Does it? If at all possible, please set personal feelings aside."
Milo offered the advice expressionlessly, and I sank briefly into thought.
Elze. One of the protagonists of Outcast.
In those days when I had lost everything, I had felt pure delight thanks to them. At least while I was reading the comics, I could escape that wretched reality.
That past freedom, even now that this entire world had regressed, I still missed.
─What the fuck are you staring at, you assholes!
Elze tossed her head up and screamed in defiance. Her temper was just like in the comic.
I checked her vital readings and the state of her Mana Circuit.
"Then, let's start by raising the voltage."
Milo pushed the lever up.
Khh───!
Pain provoked mana. Various readings of her mana emissions registered on the monitor. The Virus detected those waves, and just as I gripped the pen.
I felt a 'gaze' stabbing into the back of my neck.
A gaze that reeked of blood, as if straining to its very limit from somewhere far away to observe this place.
Bzzzzzzt──!
Outcast─the cartoonist 'Filty' had pinpointed the location of this place.
With Elze taken from them, they would not waste time deliberating and devising an operation; they would move at once. For that recklessness was their very identity.
────!!!
Elze's scream grew fiercer.
I activated the timer within my body.
「24 : 00 : 00」
The episode had just begun.
.......
The hideout in the Underground City.
Filty stared into empty air, drawing comics like a woman possessed. Meden took, one after another, the bundles of paper scrawled out by her fingertips.
"...Found it."
The pages depicted, in vivid detail, the situation at Mason Industry.
[ Gerd : All I have to do is analyze the Mana Wave the subject emits? ]
[ Milo : Yes. We'll handle the physical stimulation. ]
[ Gerd : Sounds fun. ]
[ Milo : ...Does it? If at all possible, please set personal feelings aside.]
Meden looked down at the two researchers' faces rendered in pen. The hulking man at his side, Pain, clenched his jaw tight.
"Gerd, Milo... Burn those marked-for-death bastards' faces into your memory."
To the murderous voice, Meden answered quietly.
"Rescuing Elze comes first."
The location was pinpointed.
The plan? They never thought one out.「Outcast」 was always like that.
"Meden! Onyx got in touch. They said they'll help."
Caden relayed the news he had received via mana parchment.
Onyx was likewise a group of T24 victims. An armed faction of those who had failed the human experimentation, been treated as discarded waste, and abandoned, who hated the Empire and Mason Industry every bit as much as they themselves did.
"That'll do. Everyone, get ready."
They came up to the first floor of「Tavern Quanda」. At that counter, where Quanda had greeted them every day, today there was nothing but empty silence.
Meden gazed at the place bitterly, then signaled outside with his eyes.
"...Let's go."
「Outcast」 came up out of the Underground City and got into a car. Filty too, curled up in the back seat, kept ceaselessly drawing her comics.
The conversation her comrades had just shared, the torture taking place at Mason Industry...
"Filty. Rest now."
Meden reached out a hand to Filty.
"Mhm..."
Filty, pale-faced, just before setting down her pen, wrote a number in the corner of the last panel.
[ 23 : 00 : 00 ]
.......
"How does it look?"
Milo asked, pointing at the figures displayed on the monitor.
Indeed, the Mana Wavelength Elze emitted was nowhere near ordinary.
"Yes. She really does seem to be a successful test subject."
But these people were under a misconception.
The success of this experiment was by no means due to Mason's superior technology. It was solely thanks to the peculiar disposition and compatibility possessed by the individual called Elze.
In other words, it was nothing more than the product of coincidence and talent overlapping.
They lacked scalability.
The bastards had killed thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of children on the experimentation tables, only to stumble upon five or six who could endure having an Artificial Mana Circuit implanted.
But the talent to withstand the very core of the Mana Engine, the 'heart' overflowing with mana, would be thousands of times rarer still.
Perhaps even if they scoured this entire continent and dragged together every last candidate, not a single one might exist.
"It's done."
I diagrammed Elze's Mana Wavelength and handed it to Milo. Milo hurriedly took it from me and broke into a radiant smile.
"...It really is different. Everyone, come over here, look at this!"
At Milo's call, the dozens of researchers scattered around the laboratory gathered together. They huddled close to peer at the wavelength I had handed over. Murmuring to one another like chicks, they burned with enthusiasm.
"..."
It was probably the 'plot' that all of them would be killed tonight at the hands of the Outcasts coming to rescue Elze.
But...
I felt it was a waste.
Researchers who could experiment on thousands, tens of thousands of children and feel nothing whatsoever.
People who, far from any guilt, could rejoice purely in their research results.
People who simply, ordinarily, carried out the orders that came down from above.
I needed people like that.
It was by their hands that Ezenheim had to be dissected.
"Dr. Gerd! Take a look at this!"
The brightly smiling researchers. Watching them, who were perhaps thinking of bonuses or vacation, or perhaps simply delighting in this moment of having carried out their superiors' orders.
I checked the timer inside my body.
「16 : 15 : 37」
Not much time was left.
.......
Before long, night had grown deep, and the Mason Industry research facility was wrapped in dark fog.
"Sector A-3. All clear."
Mason Industry's security team maintained a strict watch.
That said, they politely refused intervention from the Imperial police or knight orders, and resolved every matter by the company's own strength. Already under the Emperor's protection, there was no reason to risk leaking experiment information by accepting outside help.
"Sector A-4...?"
The silent outskirts of the research facility.
The instant a guard fixed his gaze on a certain spot, a figure emerged soundlessly from the darkness.
Whssssh─!
A flash gleamed. The guard's throat was slashed.
Thump. Thud, thud.
Without even time to scream, his severed head tumbled across the pavement in empty silence. One by one, every guard had his head parted from his body and crumpled.
A silent infiltration.
The Outcast operation had begun──
──The top floor of the Mason Industry building. Falkenrath's quarters.
Through the radio signal linked to his prosthetic eye, Falkenrath felt in real time as the security signals on the perimeter were severed one by one.
─So they're coming...
But far from being thrown into a panic, he merely killed time with a delighted smile. He merely waited for the cute little pests about to arrive.
To him, this entire situation was nothing more than amusement. Nothing more than the antics of insignificant creatures.
He would entertain himself watching the dogs and pigs crawling into their own deaths, and when the time came, he would simply trample them all and capture them alive as test subjects.
Crack!
Falkenrath gave a leering smile and cracked the joints of his mechanical arm.
[ 12 : 00 : 00 ]
.......
The laboratory. I returned briefly to my desk. I pulled out the long fishing rod case I had stowed there.
"Dr. Gerd. Do you happen to enjoy fishing?"
A passing researcher asked amiably.
"Yes. I enjoy it as a hobby now and then."
I answered with a faint smile.
"Fishing... I tried it once before, but it really wasn't for me..."
The researchers lived ordinarily, and acted ordinarily.
People who, in the course of ordinarily carrying out their superiors' wicked orders, had ordinarily become war criminals.
There had been many such war criminals before my regression too.
"I'll step out for some air for a moment."
"Yes sir. You've been working hard lately!"
I made my way into the corridor.
Leaning against the emergency stairwell, I sank suddenly into deep thought.
"...Outcast."
Outcast. They were people who could never cooperate with the Empire. Because they were victims of human experimentation perpetrated under the Empire's tacit acknowledgment, no, its tacit consent.
But if I left them alone as I had before my regression, they would grow more terrifying with each passing day.
In the end, each and every one of them would be reborn as a force of resistance close to a calamity, one the Empire would never dare control.
Thus, the true significance of this 'episode', the thing I had to draw out by infiltrating Mason Industry...
Those who had given me, the fugitive, fleeting happiness and the joy of forgetting reality.
It lay in gathering them together in this place and executing them.
Click.
I shouldered the fishing rod case and let out a deep sigh.
「06 : 13 : 00」
The timer inside my body was ticking onward.
───Boooom!
An explosion went off not far away.
"..."
I climbed the stairs. Walking through the panicked researchers, I returned once more to the same laboratory.
"Milo."
Senior Researcher Milo was still busy analyzing the figures and waves.
"Yes. Yes. Come here."
"Something seems to have happened outside."
"Ah... yes. Probably some kind of issue came up while-"
Boom!
"-they were working. Don't worry. It'll die down soon. It's an everyday thing at the lab."
Kraboom!
Contrary to his words, it was getting steadily louder. More violent.
The Outcasts were surging into this place.
"Milo."
I planted myself in front of him as if to block his way. I slammed my palm down on the research data and lowered my gaze, glaring straight into his eyes.
"That woman's comrades have broken in."
"What? What do you..."
People with a strange sense of mission, who would stay here researching to the very end, only to be wiped out by armed groups including the Outcasts. People who, in the course of carrying out their superiors' orders, lost the most important thing of all, their 'lives'.
I needed people like that.
"If you want to live, go up. Not down. Up."
I could grant a temporary reprieve from the sin of experimenting on human bodies and torturing people.
If you could be of even the slightest use to the future of humanity, anyone at all.
Even if it was the hand of a guiltless monster, gladly.
"..."
Milo looked at my face with ordinary eyes.
Crrrrunch──.
From even closer in, ominous presences came surging.
~~~
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