Although there was the added condition that they would have to continue sending black stones and stimulants as they had been, the president accepted my demands.
He likely hadn’t seen through my intentions, and thought that if he gave authority to the commander, he could sever the connection between the Trappist expeditionary force and the power brokers of Paradise.
When I asked him to leave that in writing, the president looked troubled, but in the end I won his consent.
Once that discussion was over, the president seemed regretful.
“These aren’t the rewards I had in mind. I wanted to give you something more personal.”
At his words, I shook my head.
“What you’ve given me now is the best reward for me. Right now, helping the Trappist expeditionary force is the greatest help you can give me.”
These rewards would be far more useful than President Stewart and the others imagined.
After the matter of rewards was settled, the president looked at me with a troubled expression.
“Next is the China issue…”
The reason the president had so readily listened to me was because of China.
China, whose expeditionary force had been annihilated.
The president of the United States and the American government had to appease that China.
“China must not lose the star connected to Tibet. If they lose that star, there’s no telling what China will do when it has nowhere left to turn.”
Certainly, in the worst-case scenario, nuclear war could break out. Before Earth was destroyed by the carbon dioxide explosion, humanity might end first by nuclear war.
“If they can no longer go to that star, we might be able to accommodate some of them in Paradise, but neither we nor China wants that.”
China, which had been so desperately searching for a star of its own, naturally didn’t want that, and America also didn’t want to let China into Paradise.
“With you here on Earth, it wouldn’t make sense to call someone else from Paradise or Trappist.”
The president asked me politely.
“I’m asking you. You don’t have to clean everything up. Just keep China from losing hope until the end. No, even just until civil war breaks out would be enough.”
The president of the United States seemed convinced that civil war would break out in China.
Or was he saying he intended to make one break out?
I felt like I should pretend I hadn’t heard that.
At the president’s request, I nodded.
“Understood. I’ll stop by Tibet before I go to Trappist.”
The reason I nodded wasn’t because America had accepted my demands.
Nor was it to prevent the danger of nuclear war, or because I was worried about the Chinese people.
It wasn’t that those reasons didn’t exist at all, but the most important reason was something else.
Even without his request, I had to visit the star connected to Tibet.
I needed to set the coordinates for a new star, but more importantly, I had to check whether the magicians of the ancient kingdom who had escaped Trappist had come to that star.
The people Soph had gotten out of Trappist by dying.
I had to find the star where those people had arrived.
Thanks to my acceptance, the meeting with the president of the United States ended on a fairly decent note.
After shaking hands with the people in the room, I went back up to the surface with Magreta.
The White House aboveground was far more chaotic than before we had gone down below.
People were running around and shouting into telephones.
There was no need to strain my ears like earlier.
“Make them cough up every last bit of food they have! It doesn’t matter if they’re the world’s largest grain majors or one of the big four, none of that matters. This is a presidential executive order! They’re going to sue? If they want to sue, let them sue!”
“The sea route to Djibouti has to be secure! Clear out anything in the vicinity that might get in the way! What? Neighboring countries are protesting? Tell any country that protests that we’ll smash them first!”
An official passing by was shouting into a phone, and someone was yelling from inside a room, but no one paid any attention.
We passed through the White House corridors, which were like a marketplace, and headed to the parking lot.
From the parking lot, it looked as if the demonstrations outside the White House had grown even worse than before.
At least tens of thousands of people seemed to have gathered, but the staff and bodyguards guiding us paid them no mind.
We got into a car and headed for the airport.
We had come to Washington and now had to leave without even resting.
Because China had been added to our schedule.
On top of that, there was somewhere else I had to stop before leaving America.
Before we left Washington on the private jet, Deputy Director Samuel, whom I had parted from in the White House basement, came all the way to the plane.
He handed me a document.
It was a document stamped “TOP SECRET” and titled “Special Instructions Regarding Command of the Trappist Expeditionary Force.”
When I looked at the document, Samuel explained what it was.
“This is the document guaranteeing Commander Catherine’s independent operational authority, as promised during the meeting. It was drafted by the president and sent as an instruction to key officials in the State Department, Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and our intelligence agency.”
I had heard that processing official documents in America took a long time, but apparently that wasn’t the case.
It hadn’t been long since the meeting ended, yet the American government had already produced this document.
Moreover, the deputy director of the intelligence agency had brought it himself.
Sitting in the private jet and receiving a classified document, I once again realized that my position had changed.
“As you both know, this document cannot be made public for the time being. Security measures have also been placed on the parties involved, so please be careful as well.”
After giving that final warning, Deputy Director Samuel got off the plane.
Once he had disembarked, the private jet took to the sky.
Our destination was San Francisco.
It was the place I had to stop before leaving America.
Perhaps because it was a private jet, the plane arrived at San Jose International Airport in just five hours.
Even after sleeping for a while on the plane and waking up, the sun was still high in the sky.
After flying across time zones, it wasn’t easy to tell what time it was.
When I checked, it was three in the afternoon by California time.
That was a relief.
I wouldn’t be calling someone out of bed.
It was still working hours, but what I had to do now was more important than that work.
The person I had called, my older brother, entered the private jet and gaped.
“What the hell is going on? You suddenly call me to the airport, and what’s with this passenger plane?”
“It’s a U.S. government private jet. Not the presidential plane, just a private jet.”
Even with my explanation, his astonished expression didn’t change.
The plane wasn’t the only reason my brother was surprised. He seemed even more stunned by Magreta’s beauty as she sat beside me.
He shook his head to clear his thoughts, then asked me,
“What on earth happened? Considering you sent me to America and then called me out like this, there must be a reason.”
As my brother said, there was a reason I had come to find him.
The situation now was very different from when I had sent him to America.
Paradise, which I had thought of as a safe refuge, was only a temporary refuge with an expiration date, and I had obtained another alternative.
Now I had to tell my brother the truth as well.
I had told other people, so it made no sense to keep it secret only from my own brother.
I asked Soph to place a soundproof barrier around the plane’s cabin, then told my brother everything that had happened.
What had happened on Trappist, the Earth heading toward destruction, and the things I was preparing.
After hearing the story, my brother looked back and forth between me and Magreta with a dumbfounded expression.
“I knew the star you were going to was dangerous, but you were fighting a war against alien monsters all this time? And on top of that, the end of the Earth…? You’re telling me to believe this?”
My brother seemed shocked and kept muttering with an expression of disbelief, but I wasn’t worried.
He was a strong person.
Someone who moved forward even when shocked, even in difficult situations.
Growing up, I had often been told that I resembled my brother.
Before long, just as I expected, his expression returned to normal.
“It doesn’t feel real, but… anyway, I understand the situation. You came here to give me that ‘stimulant,’ right?”
“That’s right. Since I was stopping by America anyway, I thought I’d check whether you could become a user candidate.”
As I spoke, I took out a pill I had prepared separately.
It was the stimulant I had prepared for my brother.
The pill contained several times more of the undiluted solution than the potion administered by injection, but since it was for my brother, it didn’t matter.
I handed the pill to him.
“Try taking it. The odds are between one in a hundred and one in fifty, so the chances aren’t high.”
I told him the odds honestly so he wouldn’t be disappointed, but his reaction was different.
My brother examined the pill with curiosity and asked me,
“So the chance of success is up to two percent?”
When I nodded, my brother threw the pill into his mouth with a satisfied look.
“In gacha games, two percent is a generous rate.”
It was just like my brother, who loved games.
After he took the medicine, time passed.
Even as time went by, nothing changed.
My brother was exactly the same as before he had taken the medicine.
“Looks like it failed, right? I guess I really don’t have a talent for draws.”
When there was no change even after waiting, my brother clicked his tongue and rose from his seat.
“You said this isn’t the only method. You said you can take ordinary people with you too, so let me know when you’re ready. I’ll put your assets in order in the meantime.”
Perhaps because it had all come so suddenly, my brother didn’t seem disappointed.
I wasn’t disappointed either.
“It didn’t fail. I guess two percent really is a generous rate.”
The pill my brother had taken had not failed.
The reason he hadn’t changed was because this was Earth.
On Earth, where there was no dark energy, user candidates and dark energy users were no different from ordinary people.
Magreta, who was beside me, was an ordinary person right now too.
Originally, I probably would only have been able to tell through a blood test, but my senses, strengthened beyond what they had been before, could distinguish ordinary people from user candidates.
Those senses told me that my brother had become a user candidate.
I asked him,
“What will you do? Do you want to go with me on this plane?”
If I entered Korea with my brother, it wasn’t as if there would be no problems, but the American government should be able to handle that.
My brother, who had been surprised to hear that he had become a user candidate, shook his head at my next words.
“No. I need time to put things in order.”
I understood what he meant.
If he took this plane to Korea, my brother would be going straight over to Trappist.
If that happened, returning to Earth would not be easy.
As my brother said, he needed to settle his affairs on Earth before going to Trappist.
“I need to take care of your assets too, and I should meet people one last time.”
I nodded at his words, but I couldn’t bring myself to agree with what he said next.
“And the old man, too…”
Nothing good had ever come of meeting that old man.
I would have to meet him someday, but I intended to avoid it as long as possible.
However, I couldn’t stop my brother from saying he would meet our father.
Leaving behind those distressing words, my brother shook Magreta’s hand for a long time, then got off the plane.
After my brother got off, the private jet set off again.
This time, across the Pacific, past the Korean Peninsula, and on to China.
The plane headed for Tibet.
To Tibet (2)