#253
A Closed Dimension (2)
A study filled with lavish decorations.
On the work monitor set up there, all manner of information flashed by at high speed.
It was moving so quickly that anyone with merely decent dynamic vision would not have been able to read even a single line, and yet...
‘I’ve gotten used to this now, too.’
The man seated before it simply stared at the screen calmly, without the slightest change in expression.
Bzzzt—
Along with a faint vibration from one of his eyeballs, the tremendous flood of information reflected in his eye was projected directly into his mind.
It was something dangerous enough that an ordinary person would not have been strange to go mad from experiencing it, but to him, with his transcendent mental abilities, it was no more than light brain training.
‘Is that all?’
As expected of the ultimate artificial eye, the essence of magitech.
Thanks to its overwhelming performance, the man who had instantly input the vast volume of reports into his mind—the Lawgiver—slowly closed his eyes and swiftly reviewed the information in his head.
‘...Where are you, Hahoe Mask?’
Hahoe Mask, who had disappeared right after the battle in Japan that day, still had not shown himself.
As if to take his place, a vampire named Heinz had begun roaming the night streets of Seoul, but Doctor was personally taking an interest in that side and making moves, so it was not something for him to interfere in.
‘The fact that he still hasn’t appeared means something must have happened to him in that battle after all.’
He quietly nodded.
Well, in the first place, it had been an act of mental terror carried out with the intent of incapacitating him.
If he had been fine after taking that, it would have been unfair instead.
Opening his eyes again, the Lawgiver shifted his gaze and looked at his own right arm, hanging limp.
When he faced the body that had lost function after what Hahoe Mask had done to him—following one eye and both legs—rage boiled up in his chest.
‘Hahoe Mask...’
As he was mulling over his situation and engraving his resentment anew—
-Beep beep beep!
A notification for a communication request suddenly rang out from the study speaker.
After checking who it was, he slowly reached out his left hand and approved the connection.
-Ah, ah—this is Doctor. Are you the Lawgiver, sir~?
“That is correct, Doctor. What is the matter?”
A frivolous voice came through the speaker.
He frowned slightly at it, but still responded calmly.
-Uhyahyat~ Ah, I contacted you to inform you that the Society Leader has departed again! He said he tried to wait as long as possible, but it seemed he could not hold out any longer. My, what a regrettable affair!
A fair amount of time had passed since the clash with Hahoe Mask in Japan.
All the while, the Society Leader had been reorganizing the organization in preparation for the man’s possible reappearance, but it seemed even the time he had been able to spend like that had now reached its limit.
-He said it couldn’t be helped, since the battle with Smile Mask drew far more attention from “Earth” than expected! Since it had come to that, he tried to push himself a little and capture the fellow for certain... Tsk~ This loss is no small matter!
“...My apologies. Because I failed to settle things decisively, it seems the opportunity for the Society Leader to act was wasted in vain.”
He honestly did not think it was largely his fault, but given how serious the matter was, he could not simply pretend not to know and let it pass.
Since their meticulously arranged plan had gone awry, the Fantian Society’s grand design as a whole would inevitably be delayed further.
-Aaah~ What in this world ever goes exactly as intended? If the best option won’t do, then we simply choose the next best. The Society Leader will manage well wherever he is, so we need only do what we can!
Perhaps Doctor also knew that it had been an unavoidable situation, for he did not say anything in particular to him.
He merely vented his dissatisfaction with the fundamental cause behind things turning out this way.
-Tsk, but still, this situation... truly displeases me. Just how long must we keep dancing to the gods’ tune!
That was not blaming Hahoe Mask for interfering with their work, but rather the reason the Society Leader could not properly exert his power—and the very raison d’être of the Fantian Society.
“Isn’t this degree of deviation within expectations? There is not much time left.”
-Hoo— That’s right, indeed! Ah, I look forward to that moment! If an irrational existence called a god exists, then scientific progress, new discoveries, and inventions all become meaningless! Matters in the human world ought to be settled among humans, so how dare something like a god interfere—!
For once, he had seemed comparatively restrained.
But sure enough, Doctor’s voice, which had been speaking rapidly as if to himself, gradually began to fill with madness.
‘Here he goes again.’
Only like this could he be called the Fantian Society’s representative madman.
At that, the Lawgiver nodded along loosely as though he had given up, and suitably humored him.
Thus Doctor’s excited, impassioned speech continued for quite some time.
And after chattering away with great enthusiasm, he could not contain his own fervor and huffed by himself, then unilaterally cut off the communication, saying he would pour that energy into his research.
In the sudden silence that followed.
“Haa.”
The Lawgiver let out a short sigh, closed his eyes, leaned back against the chair, and sank into deep thought.
Suddenly, he recalled what he had said in Hahoe Mask’s mental world when they first encountered each other.
-The freedom of returnees. To create a world led by us.
-We have existed for far longer. And we have continued to struggle for freedom.
‘Freedom, huh...’
What he had said back then had been sincere.
He had merely not bothered to mention that the opponent was not some human authority, but a divine existence.
Of course, in the end, they would eventually come to hold the hegemony of the world as well, so it was not particularly different.
‘Sacrifice is inevitable for the greater cause.’
Terrorism, too, was part of that great undertaking, one step in the process of completing the ritual.
If things went according to plan, roughly half of Earth’s population would be sacrificed in the end.
Hahoe Mask seemed to have no intention whatsoever of accepting that, but there was a limit to how much interference a single person could cause anyway, so it did not matter.
The plan was still proceeding smoothly even now.
***
‘The leader of the Fantian Society—could it be him?’
It was a deduction without concrete evidence or context, but a sharp intuition that had crossed some singular point warned him clearly.
That the cause of the current situation was that very man.
Feeling the need for more detailed information, Harris spared no effort in stimulating Chen Deman’s memory.
Crackle—!
“Ggggh—! I really don’t know! I said I don’t know!”
“Mm? Are you speaking informally to me?”
“N-no! I said this is all I know! That’s everything I know!”
But regrettably... even after introducing all manner of scientific methods, he could not obtain any more detailed information from him.
All he knew amounted to baseless rumors along the lines of, “Apparently there was such a secret story behind the empire’s collapse.”
“Then who did you hear that story from?”
“Urgh, from my sworn brother... the chief of the Changjiang Waterway Stronghold! He said he’d heard it somewhere too and mentioned it like a joke while drinking, so I don’t know the source!”
“The Changjiang Waterway Stronghold...”
The Changjiang Waterway Stronghold.
They were a confederation of river pirates like the Eighteen Strongholds of Dongting, who operated around Dongting Lake, but in practice, they were a massive organization superior in every regard.
In this world where magic did not exist, the center of logistics could only be water transport, and based on the vast Changjiang that crossed the continent, they possessed power to match.
Naturally, the authorities, who knew the importance of the waterways, had also stepped in to strictly regulate them, but were bandits not people well-versed in evading such control to begin with?
‘On top of that, this is a world where a small number of strong individuals can overwhelm many soldiers.’
The river pirates roamed the broad Changjiang, accumulating wealth through smuggling and tolls, becoming a headache for the authorities.
Now that the nation had collapsed and the reins had come loose, they monopolized the waterways and wielded even greater influence than before the world had fallen into chaos.
“Hmm, this is troublesome.”
Recalling that information, Harris let out a low hum and furrowed his brow.
The problem was that the Changjiang’s waters stretched tremendously far, and the time given to him was not very long.
There were only about seven days left.
That was absolutely not enough time to capture a target who was likely wandering somewhere along the Changjiang and extract information from him.
‘...No, I can’t expect to be full after the first bite. Let’s not rush. My initial goal was to gather information and then secure an environment suitable for growth anyway.’
Though somehow, that had turned into a rampage of beating down every last river pirate.
There was no need to devote all his strength to that right away.
“Ugh... I don’t know what you want, but if there’s something you wish to know, why not seek out those more likely to know instead of doing this to lowly river pirates like us? For example, the Zhuge Clan in Longzhong, Hubei Province, beyond the Changjiang.”
Just then, Chen Deman groaned and spoke as if grumbling.
It did look like he was trying to pass the misfortune attached to him onto someone else, but there was certainly sense in what he said.
“The Zhuge Clan?”
“Ahem, they’re said to be people who know more than they don’t. They’ve also produced many imperial officials. And I’ve heard that the Zhuge Clan was the first to discover the decline of qi and the importance of dragon veins.”
If it was truly a place like that, there was a high possibility they also knew the inside story behind this situation.
Moreover, unlike the chief of the Changjiang Waterway Stronghold, who was said to move between the various water strongholds under his command, their base was clear, making them easy to visit.
‘Hmm, and they’re a renowned noble clan, you say.’
In this chaos, there was essentially no place in the world that could be called safe.
Given the circumstances, the help of a local partner would be essential for a smooth life.
But he could not choose just any place, either...
‘...Then, shall I go there first and check?’
Of course, after collecting all the wealth the river pirates had gathered.
***
A shabby fishing village near Dongting Lake.
Until just a few days ago, only a gloomy atmosphere had hung over the place, as if the people lived only because they had failed to die, but now the villagers were filled with excitement at the small hope that had suddenly come to them.
Not only had the river pirates who exploited them received heavenly punishment, but the storehouses that had been emptied because of them were filled again, and their hearts had grown more generous.
It was a faint hope that might be snuffed out by some other hardship at any time, but for those who had lived arduous lives, it became the strength to endure the present day.
“Huh, this is...”
And at the entrance of that small village.
A middle-aged man in an old, worn Daoist robe stepped in and let out an exclamation.
“Who are you?”
At that, an old man with a bent back, who had been sitting in the shade of a tree, looked at him and spoke in a wary voice.
An outsider had suddenly appeared in such a small fishing village, which had not had any visitors to speak of even before the calamity.
No matter how one looked at it, it could not be anything but suspicious.
“Ah! My apologies, elder. This poor Daoist is called Qingguan.”
“...You’re a Daoist priest? What brings you here...?”
However, at the courteous greeting the middle-aged man showed, the old man’s wariness eased slightly.
Of course, in times like these, whether one was a Daoist priest or a monk, danger was danger all the same, but if he was polite to that extent, he likely would not reveal malicious intentions right away.
“Regarding that, there is one thing I would like to ask you, elder...”
And as if he had been waiting for the old man’s question, the Daoist priest, Qingguan, opened his mouth, then turned his head and looked across the lake.
“Do you happen to know what happened over there?”
The place his gaze touched was a small island in Dongting Lake, which boasted a width like the sea.
It was the location of the Fish Dragon Stronghold, the water stronghold that had ruled this area until recently.
“Oho! As expected of a Daoist priest, you noticed at once. Huh-hut, the Dragon King of Dongting Lake brought heavenly punishment down upon those river pirate bastards!”
“The Dragon King... you say?”
As if he had never been wary at all, the old man brightened and raised his voice.
And he went on to tell Qingguan about the majestic and mysterious sight he had seen that day.
The thick, vortex-shaped clouds that covered the sky, the tremendous storm that swept over and enveloped the entire area.
And on top of that, the thunder and lightning that continuously burst forth from the ground as if the Thunder God had descended.
Qingguan listened to those seemingly exaggerated words with a serious expression, then nodded heavily.
His gaze turned once more toward the island, where certain traces remained thickly.
Had he not been seeing it clearly with his own two eyes right now, he too would have dismissed the old man’s words as mere bluster.
That was how utterly absurd the story of that abnormal phenomenon was.
But even at this moment, he could feel it clearly, and so he had no choice but to believe.
The tremendous traces left there, and traces plainly alien to the energy of this world.
‘...As expected, it is not of this world.’
The old man said the Dragon King of Dongting Lake had delivered heavenly punishment, but that was probably not true.
Whether dragon kings, immortals, or monsters, they were, in any case, undoubtedly beings that belonged to this world.
Qingguan politely thanked the old man who had answered his question, then hurriedly left the village and headed for a place with few signs of people.
Then, after taking ritual implements from his pack and setting up a simple shrine, he sat at its center, lifted a talisman in front of his face, and quietly chanted an incantation.
A short time passed like that.
Whoosh—
A blue flame suddenly bloomed from the talisman, scattering a gentle light around it.
Yet even amid that, far from burning away, the talisman remained stiff as it had first been, without so much as a single scorch mark.
“This poor Daoist Qingguan makes his report.”
And that Daoist priest, Qingguan, an occultist of the Maoshan Sect, continued in a reverent voice.
“At Dongting Lake in Hunan Province, I have discovered traces of an otherworlder who possesses the power of another realm.”
A message sent to the main mountain of his sect in Jiangsu Province, far away from here.
#254