It took four whole days after making an appointment with Daniel before we were finally able to meet.
The southern front had grown excessively busy lately.
As the active offensive against the Clan began, Daniel, the field commander, had started shuttling back and forth between the battlefield and the base.
“What kind of nonsense is it to give someone work yourself, then make them wait when they come to report?”
Perez clicked his tongue.
He’d said he was busy with one thing or another lately, but the moment I said I was going to report to Daniel, he came along at once.
His reason was that he would keep an eye on me so I wouldn’t make any mistakes in front of Daniel.
The way I saw it, he just wanted to go full Fast & Furious.
It had already been thirty minutes since I got out of the car, but my stomach was still churning.
Ugh.
I felt a little better after drinking the water an attendant handed me.
“Do you understand? Even if they made us wait, when we actually meet him and exchange greetings, you must not show any sign of dissatisfaction.”
“I haven’t really been dissatisfied….”
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
You are absolutely right.
It had already been thirty minutes since we started waiting in front of the door.
Voices were still coming from inside.
It didn’t sound like anyone else was there.
He seemed to be on a call.
“So…, the South is…! No, of course the Empire…, sufficient power…. We have no intention of becoming independent…!”
They said nobles fought with politics.
In any case, he had quite the set of lungs.
Daniel was a very old man, on the level of Dolores, but wouldn’t his throat hurt if he shouted like that?
Or did people’s voices get louder as they aged?
I’d heard that the more their hearing went and their throats wore out, the louder their voices became.
“At least ask how much longer we have to wait.”
At Perez’s words, the attendant nodded and knocked on the door.
Thump. Thump.
“Lord Daniel.”
“Kaaak, hmm! Tell them to come in.”
Looks like his voice gave out.
The attendant opened the door for us.
Daniel was gulping down water, then hurriedly set the cup down.
“We’ll skip the greetings. Sit. Did you capture the Banshee? There hasn’t been any major change in the Clan’s movements.”
He looked somewhat impatient.
If the matter of the Banshee was that important, why had he made us wait four days?
There was none of the composure he’d shown last time.
Maybe it had something to do with that phone call earlier.
No, perhaps our first meeting last time had been all pretense.
First impressions mattered in anything.
Even though Daniel was hardly composed now, perhaps because of that first impression, he still seemed somewhat generous and benevolent.
“We didn’t capture the Banshee.”
“Then why have you come?”
“Instead, we found the Banshee’s residence.”
“We also encountered it directly.”
Daniel’s eyes widened.
“How on earth did you find it? We stirred up the Clan again and again trying to locate it, but not one of them spoke of the Banshee’s location.”
Of course they wouldn’t talk.
No, they couldn’t.
For starters, among the clans, Dolores was known to have died of cancer.
So they didn’t know who was controlling the Banshee, or where its residence was.
And if they were stirred up, they would have been even less likely to talk.
If they had taken the time to persuade them instead, they might at least have said they didn’t know.
The moment I opened my mouth to answer, Perez stepped hard on my instep.
“The method is a personal matter. I’m afraid it would be difficult to tell you.”
Don’t reveal that we made contact with the Clan and talked things out smoothly.
I understood what he meant, but did he really need to step on my foot?
It hurt.
He always stepped especially hard when he stepped on my feet.
Daniel nodded.
“I see. Yes, of course. The method is not important. Whatever means you used, what matters is that you found the Banshee. Is the Banshee at that residence?”
“It was a hidden residence. The hangar is concealed through a secret passage leading beneath the building.”
“I see. So that is how it is. Understood. Can you input the location information into the map?”
I took out my smartwatch.
I placed it on top of the hologram device in front of me and transferred the location information.
“Lord Daniel.”
Once the location was entered, a holographic map appeared.
Daniel stared intently at the marked old house.
“What is it? Is it about the reward? Don’t worry. I will tell my grandson to send the reward at once. You were a hero in the West, and now you have played such a major role in the South as well. I’m grateful.”
“Lady Dolores has dementia, so she cannot serve as the focal point of the Clan.”
Daniel’s expression stiffened.
“Is that true?”
“I’m not a doctor, so I don’t know the details. But when she looked at the Banshee, she called it a latest-model Titan. It’s certain she has cognitive issues.”
Where had her daughter gone?
How on earth had Dolores recovered from terminal cancer?
Perhaps there had been some kind of deal involving her daughter’s whereabouts.
The most likely possibility I could think of was the House of Count Luna.
Maybe she had contacted the House of Count Luna, which excelled in biotechnology, and in exchange for obtaining a drug that could cure even terminal cancer, she had handed over her body for experimentation.
It was all within the realm of conjecture, so I couldn’t be certain of anything.
Dolores, who could have told us the means, the method, and her daughter’s whereabouts, had become an old woman with dementia.
“Ah, aah….”
Daniel pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed.
“I do not know how time can be so cruel. One person keeps their faculties and sits in the seat of a leader on the front lines, while another must forget the past and become a weeping ghost?”
“My condolences, Lord Daniel.”
At Perez’s words, Daniel shook his head.
“No. This, too, must be a function of time. What was the Banshee’s condition?”
“It didn’t look good on the outside. But it definitely runs.”
“What about the generator?”
“The same. It still works and operates properly.”
“Understood. I must hurry and send people to recover Dolores and the Banshee. If they are left there as they are, there is no telling what trouble they might get caught up in. I truly will have the reward paid immediately.”
I stood up with Perez.
“Thank you.”
“No, I should be thanking you. Return safely.”
“I’ll see you next time under better circumstances.”
After saying our farewells, we came outside.
We walked quite a long way with the attendant.
After reaching the parking lot, we got into the car and fastened our belts.
Beep.
It was a message.
A message saying my account had been restored.
“It’s been restored.”
“That was fast. Send the necessary credits to this account, and I’ll use them as they are to make the Titan.”
“Yes, I’ll send them now.”
I had far more money than I’d thought.
I was sure I had entered an enormous number, but there was still plenty of money left.
“I sent it.”
I’d received the reward, and I’d spent the money I needed to spend.
There was still a lot of money left.
Still, now I wouldn’t have to regret not having money anymore.
I could just stick what remained into the encrypted account the Liberation Army had made for me.
“Confirmed. Rather than making purchase reservations, it’s much faster to pay cash and buy things immediately. The time needed to build the Titan has probably been shortened considerably.”
“By how much?”
“That depends on Ian. By an ordinary engineer’s standards, it would take two months, but Ian is not an ordinary engineer.”
Click!
Vroooooom!
The moment he inserted the key and turned it, the engine let out a roar.
“So, what do you think?”
Something had been itching inside me since earlier.
It was a sensation I’d felt often these days, and one I had never once ignored.
Discomfort.
“It felt like acting.”
It was the discomfort I’d felt from the moment I brought up Dolores’s dementia.
Every single one of Daniel’s reactions had felt uncomfortable.
“I think the same.”
Perez’s foot moved.
I gripped the seat belt tightly with both hands.
“Urk.”
Vroooom!
The car shot forward as if launching from a standstill.
I had no idea what he was trusting when he stepped on the accelerator like that without even an inertial control device.
“That was the first time I saw Lord Daniel grieving. Usually, when you see a man with a strong sense of responsibility cry, it should come as a great shock, but this time I found it baffling instead.”
“Maybe he’s just bad at acting sad!”
Rattle! Rattle! Rattle!
The road surface wasn’t smooth.
The car kept jolting.
“More than anything, there was one strange point.”
“He didn’t ask about Lady Dolores’s well-being at all!”
That was the problem.
He had said the Banshee was the Clan’s focal point, yet he barely asked anything about Dolores herself.
I’d even told him that Dolores couldn’t become that focal point because of her dementia.
Even so, he seemed uninterested.
“Exactly. But he asked about the Banshee.”
“Especially about the generator!”
Perez turned his head toward me.
“Correct. He seemed greatly interested in the nuclear generator, something used only in the past and now considered lost.”
“Look ahead! Please look ahead!”
“With driving skill like mine, I can drive without looking ahead. It’s not as if there are other cars on the road.”
“Don’t talk bullshit and please look ahead!”
“Hmph.”
Perez snorted and looked forward again.
Only then did the speed finally drop a little.
Phew.
I let go of the seat belt and took a few deep breaths.
“It seems my thoughts and yours are the same.”
“I don’t think what Daniel wants is to suppress the Clan’s power or expand the Empire’s territory.”
“He wants the Banshee.”
The Banshee.
To be more precise, one single component.
“He wants the nuclear generator.”
He wanted a nuke.
Even if it was called a nuclear generator, in the end, it was still nuclear.
Drop it anywhere and make it explode, and it would be a disaster.
“But why on earth would he want it? Just because it’s a powerful force? Or is there some kind of reason?”
“I don’t know. But if I had to make a guess, there is one possibility.”
“What?”
“Deterrence.”
There was no need to hear the explanation.
I understood the moment I heard it.
Nuclear deterrence.
The power that made the other side unable to attack out of fear of nuclear retaliation.
“Do you remember? The words we heard outside the door. The South, sufficient power, independence.”
Could I say Perez’s guess was too extreme?
“That’s the only explanation.”
As if.
I wasn’t an idiot.
Daniel was trying to use nuclear deterrence to gain independence from the Empire.
The word old monster suited him.
“War will break out. We have to stop that, at least. Do you have a way?”
Perez clenched his teeth.
The Liberation Army had gathered to prevent casualties.
Of course they would avoid war.
“Yes.”
And there was a way.
“We need to contact the Space Marine Corps.”
We would steal away the Banshee, steal away Dolores.
And then we would give Robert his mother back.