The guild room on the island. A Depression-era shack with a slanted roof, a floor that creaked with every step, and sand trickling down without warning.
Yet among the ‘real’ dwellings left on this island, it ranked among the best.
“……Congratulations? Even got the professor smitten.”
Jukaken sneered, looking in the mirror. Al Rose’s face hardened.
“Don’t get cocky, you b*stard.”
“Whine all you want~ The Al Rose, puppeteer under heaven, revealed her true body, and Deculyrein got a good look at that face of yours~ That’s a fact~”
What did he say again~ That you’re more beautiful than the most beautiful artwork in the world~
Grinning, Jukaken shaved his beard. He tidied his clothes neatly.
He was probably trying to make a good impression on Deculyrein.
Al Rose shook her head.
“Whatever. Deculyrein’s the same kind of guy. I still get chills down to my hair.”
Since the days she had been called Sincia, she had been sick to death of lookism.
A life spent receiving all manner of advances from men and women alike. The reason she had hidden her ‘true body’ ever since awakening the specialized magic known as 「Puppetry」 was nothing special.
Because it was annoying.
And because it was dangerous.
The main reason she had teamed up with Gerek and Jukaken was also that. Gerek, a man with multiple personalities, had no interest in people, and Jukaken had no interest in women.
“……Finally, I can get out of this crazy island~”
“Go dig or something.”
Jukaken and Gerek’s mission was tunneling. Drawing the ‘frame’ of a magic circle on the island’s outskirts.
Persuading Gerek had been difficult, but he had eventually agreed that they needed to get outside to have a proper revenge.
“Yeah, yeah. I’d do anything to get out.”
Jukaken combed his hair. He parted it cleanly in a two-eight ratio. Finally, he was Jukaken the Yuksadu of his dark underworld days.
“Right. Where’s Deculyrein? Your mission is escort duty.”
“In town.”
“Town? Ah, so you’re doing remote escorting with that shoddy doll right now?”
Currently, Al Rose was controlling a scarecrow. A hikikomori even beyond being a homebody, she extremely avoided outdoor activity.
Besides, in here, she could avoid Silvia’s magical surveillance.
“Shoddy? It’s a doll that could kill someone like you. A thing that gave up looking human to amplify only ultimate performance. Also, I didn’t particularly want to be with the professor. The way that guy looked at me—”
“It wasn’t sinister.”
“……”
It was not sinister, nor lustful. Rather, it was pure. He truly admired her as one would admire a work of art.
It was a barrage of praise heavy enough to be burdensome.
“Well, I suppose anything goes. If I use this outward appearance to line my pockets…… there’s no bigger patron than the professor.”
Al Rose shook her head with a slightly bitter expression.
* * *
The Island of Voices. At its center stood a long, peculiar house rising like a lighthouse.
I visited Silvia’s dwelling.
To prepare for any unforeseen danger, I had placed Al Rose’s scarecrow nearby.
Literally a scarecrow. Straw dressed in clothes.
Knock, knock—
The moment I knocked, the door opened. The one who faced me inside was, of course, Silvia. She grabbed my sleeve with an angry face.
Bang!
She slammed the door roughly and spoke.
“Why did you come. To kill Siel.”
“Hardly. There’s no need to provoke you rashly.”
“Then why.”
“I heard from Ideunik that you’ve been studying.”
“……”
At that, faint wrinkles formed between Silvia’s brows. She blinked and asked.
“So.”
“Have you thought about hiring a private tutor?”
“……Wha-”
For a moment, her voice cut off as if flustered. Gulp— she swallowed and continued.
“What did you say.”
“There’s a limit to studying alone.”
Silvia looked dumbfounded. A stupid expression unlike any I had seen before. It was rather cute.
“So hire me.”
“……No.”
She shook her head. I asked brazenly.
“The reason?”
“How can I trust you. You might have come to kill Siel.”
It was a trite reason. At the same time, it was somewhat insulting.
“Silvia. I am Deculyrein. There is no deception or falsehood.”
“Even though you’re a fake.”
“No. I am still Deculyrein. I swear it. The current me will not kill Siel.”
“……”
An oath not to kill.
Silvia’s eyes swelled with surprise. Seizing that opening, I moved. I climbed the stairs leading to her room.
The frozen Silvia hurriedly chased after me, pattering.
“N-no. Stop. Stop.”
Uncharacteristically flustered, she shouted and tried to grab my back.
“Stop. Stop. I haven’t allowed you—”
I opened the door to her room.
“……”
“……”
And, silence.
“……”
“……”
First, the room was filled with dolls.
Bears, rabbits, puppies, tigers, pandas…… Over a dozen dolls arranged in rows decorated the bed, and stuck to the wall like posters were full-body portraits of me—that is, of Deculyrein.
Probably drawn by Silvia herself.
Pat-pat-pat-pat—
Silvia quickly ran over and tore down the posters.
“……Get out.”
Her face hung low, ears red with shame. But such an expulsion order was lightly ignored.
I looked around the bookshelf occupying one side of the room. Among the countless volumes, I read one title.
“Essentrutak Parielin.”
Not the common tongue, not the Yuren language, not a tribal language—a pronunciation so fluent in a language that most of the continent would consider an alien tongue.
“?”
Silvia pricked her ears and raised her head.
“It’s a fairy book. I’ve seen you reading obscene fairy literature before, too.”
“……I read that without knowing what it was.”
“Anyway, aren’t you curious. Interpretation and translation of the fairy language. Don’t you want to learn that language.”
“……”
Silvia had another hobby besides drawing.
No, rather, that hobby was the ‘real’ one.
“Documents and languages. Collecting books, learning languages. Don’t you like that more than drawing.”
“……!”
Then Silvia’s eyes grew unusually large. Her small shoulders heaved like waves.
Her reaction was greater than expected, so I was briefly puzzled.
“……How.”
Silvia’s words. A fragmented word that couldn’t even connect to a sentence.
Thanks to that, I realized. That Silvia’s hobby was currently not publicized ‘anywhere in this world’. That it was a fact known only by me, who had read her secret ‘settings’, or by Siel.
So naturally, she would find it suspicious.
“How did you know. About me.”
Silvia asked back directly.
I contemplated briefly, then nodded.
“Silvia.”
Deculyrein does not speak falsehoods. Of course, that does not mean he is incapable of lying. It is not a matter of personality programming, but merely a sort of dignity stemming from aristocratic consciousness.
“……Why.”
However, he often uses methods of hiding the truth within truth.
In the first place, saying something like ‘It’s because I’m a game designer who knows all your settings—’ is impossible.
“I still have them. I remember.”
“What do you mean. Don’t dodge—”
“‘The Star and Moon of Jepellon’.”
At that moment.
Silvia’s eyes opened wide. Her clenched fist slowly unfurled, and her tightly shut mouth fell open slightly.
“It’s the title of a book you gifted me long ago.”
* * *
Two hours later.
I returned to the guild room. Jukaken was covered in dirt as if he had been digging tunnels, and Al Rose was wearing a strange mask.
“……What did you do over there?”
So asked the masked Al Rose.
I reached for her face. Al Rose shook her head, refusing my touch.
“Don’t. Don’t. Don’t take it off.”
“……”
I nodded without a word.
This time, Jukaken asked.
“What did you do with Silvia?”
“You don’t need to know.”
“What? That crazy bitch is our enemy. What you did—”
“Here.”
Clink——!
I dropped a pile of copper coins. Jukaken and Al Rose’s reactions were explosive.
“Uwoooo?!”
“What?!”
The two lunged for the coins with sparkling eyes, and I used that opening to pull off Al Rose’s mask.
“Ah! Damn it!”
Though she covered her face with one hand, she picked up coins with the other. She shoved Jukaken, her competitor, away with her shoulder.
Despite that absurd action, glimpses of her features were beautiful. Even her slovenly appearance frantically gathering coins seemed like some kind of ‘performance art’…….
“Are these coins still valid?”
“Of course! These are the ‘real deal’. They’re ‘complete currency’, get it?”
“Complete currency?”
“I’ll explain later. Anyway, it’s a jackpot! Where’d you get these coins?”
“I got them from Silvia.”
Employment fee.
That is, wages.
“Hey, you f*cker. Stop pushing. You’re pushing so damn hard.”
“Shut up, b*stard. They’re mine.”
Jukaken and Al Rose didn’t seem interested, but if I had to explain:
Silvia had given me a bunch of coins in exchange for learning fairy grammar from me.
“Goodness. How much is all this? We could even eat steak. Okay! I’m off!”
Jukaken packed the coins until his pockets bulged and went outside, while Al Rose put the coins into her pouch with trembling hands.
Anyway, that left only the two of us.
Al Rose, who had been watching my mood, cleared her throat with a loud “Ahem—!” and silently extended her hand.
“Do you need more coins?”
“No. The mask.”
I shook my head.
“It is art too precious to hide.”
“……Just give it back. Even art wears down if too many people see it.”
“Am I not the only one seeing it.”
“……”
Al Rose lowered her arm. I used the mask to dust off the chair across from her. I sat on it.
And I gazed intently at her face.
Perhaps the gaze was burdensome, for she squirmed this way and that before eventually covering her face with both arms. Like a boxer guarding.
“Al Rose.”
“……What.”
“There is something I want to ask you now.”
“……Something to ask?”
“What do you want from the Altar?”
“……”
Al Rose is a villain of mystery.
Undoubtedly a villain cooperating with the Altar, but a villain whose reason for cooperation was not revealed even in the scenario.
She still spoke while guarding her face.
“What does that have to do with you.”
“It has everything to do with me. The Altar is the enemy of the continent.”
“……I have no reason to tell you my goal.”
Al Rose glared sharply at me, then took out a coin from her pouch. After fiddling with it, she blew on it.
Then the coin turned into a potato.
“……This is the meaning of ‘complete currency.’ These coins turn into anything, ‘for real.’ I don’t know the principle. As you can see, the value is the worst.”
Al Rose bit into the potato. I watched her eating carefully.
She frowned at that gaze and held out the potato.
“……If you want to eat, take it.”
“Even your eating is art. Despite merely stuffing your face with a single potato.”
“What?”
Clunk— I hooked my foot on her chair leg. Pulled her close so she would look at me.
Surprised, Al Rose stuck to the back of her chair like a lizard, but I pushed my face close to hers.
“The more I look, the less I tire of you. I see concepts in you. I see art. I see existence. You inspire me, you immerse me in contemplation. Your mere presence conjures magic before my eyes and lodges inspiration in my mind.”
“Ah, stop with the compliments……”
Al Rose raised her guard again. This time, she put both legs on the chair as if crouching.
At that moment.
Hii-hei-hii-hei-hii-hei-hii-hei-hii…….
Al Rose’s eyes opened wide. She whispered in a very small voice.
—A ghost.
“Vigilantes, aren’t they.”
—They’re called vigilantes, too. Follow me.
Al Rose put the potato in her mouth. In that state, she opened the handle on the floor of the guild room.
—C’mon. Hurry.
Al Rose gestured for me to come underground.
The passageway was thick with cobwebs, filthy dust fluttering about, but the presence of just one being changed that landscape. She painted the shithole of a space as nobly as part of a masterpiece.
“……Very well.”
A basement that the usual Deculyrein wouldn’t have deigned to glance at.
However, I took refuge down there together with Al Rose.
* * *
……Meanwhile, a secret chamber in the imperial palace.
Here, discussions between the anti-Deculein alliance and the Intelligence Bureau were in full swing. They were feverishly preparing a counterattack—gathering evidence together, organizing a chronology, confirming the charges, preparing copies, and so on.
“There really is a lot.”
It was Gawain who spoke. As if utterly dumbfounded, he set down a thick stack of documents.
“There are more than a few people he drove to their deaths by branding them as Red Ledger criminals when they were not.”
The atrocities Deculein had committed until now. All those truths, stained with blood, were being revealed one by one.
“If we make all this evidence public, we have a chance of winning. Deculein’s position will certainly be shaken, and above all, His Majesty will have justification.”
Yulie listened to Gawain with her ears, while her eyes were fixed on a single sheet from an evidence file.
“If His Majesty makes up his mind and swings his sword, Deculein will have no choice but to step down. After all, Deculein’s excuse for everything he has done was ultimately that it was ‘for His Imperial Majesty’……”
At that moment, Gawain studied Yulie’s expression.
“Dame Yulie. Are you all right?”
“……Hm? Ah, yes. I’m fine.”
Yulie shook her head.
“It’s a somewhat personal matter.”
Right now, she was looking through the file on the Marik incident. The file from the day she had the accident.
Among them, the [Initial Evidence List].
“Agent Rocken. Is it possible to omit or remove evidence?”
Because on the initial evidence list, there had definitely been a “bracelet.”
The bracelet her father had given her as a gift.
But when she turned to the very next page, that bracelet had vanished from the list.
“Yes. It is possible. However, even that is recorded by the Intelligence Bureau. Which piece of evidence are you referring to?”
“……This bracelet.”
Yulie pointed to the relevant paragraph in the document. The agent nodded and then, fsssss— flipped through a ledger at the speed of light.
Then he spoke.
“Yes. It was the work of Beilun, an officer who was in charge of the investigation at the time. In the past, he was also famous as a hunting dog raised on Decailen’s coin.”
Decailen.
At that instant, sparks flew in Yulie’s eyes.
“Decailen?! By Decailen, do you mean Decailen of Yukline?”
“Yes.”
“Ah, then I, I would like to see that document as well……”
She rushed over as if charging.
……
Meanwhile, in the emperor’s bedchamber.
Here, Sophien was communicating with someone.
—That’s what I’m saying. Do you know how many things he picked out to offer to Your Majesty? There are piles and piles of things he never even sent.
Deculein’s younger sister, Yeriel. This woman, with whom she had formed a connection at the university, was relaying information to her that was not particularly significant, but was pleasing nonetheless.
“Why could he not send them?”
—He said not to offer anything unless it was perfect. I swear, I couldn’t believe it either.
“Hm.”
For no particular reason, Sophien folded her arms and let out a low hum.
—Anyway, that man’s loyalty is absurd. How did someone so pro-imperial family come out of a mage family? A mage’s mind and a knight’s heart. That phrase fits him perfectly.
“……So then.”
At that moment, one question suddenly came to mind.
It was a curiosity so embarrassing it made her want to beat someone to death, but still, it was something worth asking at least once.
“With loyalty to that extent, might it not be that Deculein, in truth, harbors feelings for His Majesty…….?”
—Feelings? What, affection? Like romantic feelings?
“……”
She did not answer.
No, she could not answer.
—I don’t know? Still, considering Deculein’s personality, his ideal is His Imperial Majesty.
“……”
Sophien did not answer.
She still could not.
Even after living for more than a hundred years, this was the first time she had felt such an emotion, and the first time she had experienced a moment that made her fingers and toes curl.
—……Wait. Now I’m suddenly suspicious too. Don’t tell me he’s really begun to love His Majesty?
“……”
—No, the more I think about it, the more possible it seems. How fascinating. His Majesty certainly has the dignity that even Deculein would admire, but I never even considered it…… Ah. But that’s enough spy work for today. I have to go to work now.
“……I will see to it that what I heard today is properly conveyed. You should think it over carefully as well.”
—Yeah. I’ll have to ask Deculein himself.
Click—
And so the communication through the crystal ball ended, and Sophien smacked her lips for no reason.
Then, again for no reason, she began a game of baduk against herself out of boredom, and again for no reason, she tried studying magic.
Again for no reason, she revised a few laws, and again for no reason, she put a pipe between her lips……
“……Keiron, it is certain now.”
Then, all at once—looking at Keiron’s snow globe, she realized one thing.
“We are becoming strange.”
It had already been a week since she had last seen Deculein.
Some illness Sophien herself did not wish to explain was slowly eating away at her body.