Chapter 231: Malice (3)
Shhhhh──
A calm sea, its gentle waves caressing the hull.
I had come up onto the third-class deck, taking it all in with my eyes and my feet, sketching the ship’s layout in my mind.
The thickness of the bulkheads, the arrangement of the boiler room and the engine room, the runs of piping that followed, even the emergency escape routes. Because the ship’s machinery sat close to the third-class quarters, I could get a fairly accurate read on it.
“Mr. Eli Zella?”
At the sudden call, I turned my head.
A man in a crisp uniform approached with a smile.
“Yes, that’s me.”
“A pleasure. I’m Lecen, first mate of the Titan. The thing is……”
The mate’s point was simple.
A dispute had broken out among some distinguished guests in the Prestige Lounge, and they needed the aid of a master-grade Appraiser like myself.
“If you’d be willing to assist, we happen to have a vacant second-class cabin. How about an immediate upgrade as your appraisal fee?”
There was no reason to refuse. It would make it far easier to map out the upper decks of the ship.
I told him I’d fetch my appraisal equipment from my cabin first, then set off alongside him.
Thump—
With every step, the Virus beneath my collarbone stirred.
I forced its reaction down.
There were far too many Ezenheim hidden aboard this ship, so if I let it react to each one, I’d probably go into acute heart failure.
“This is the place.”
“……It really is different.”
“Hahaha.”
Once we passed through the isolation corridor and reached the Prestige Lounge, the very texture of the air changed. In place of the stale reek of sweat, waves of nose-stinging perfume and laughter rolled in.
“……Ah, here he comes.”
They were faces I knew well. The collateral branch of the powerful house of Goering, along with several businessmen, sank into their sofas and looked at me.
Thump—
Among the businessmen, a fair number were Ezenheim.
How ironic.
That here, of all places, the sort I could trust most were, of all things, the Empire’s pig-like nobles.
“Come over here.”
Their eyes were thick with condescension. Something deeper even than the gap in position. It was the racial contempt reserved for a Merin.
“Is this watch genuine or fake? There’s a rather large wager riding on it. Ah, I’m Halbert Goering.”
“……Goering.”
I deliberately widened my eyes, feigning surprise. Halbert, the Goering collateral, chuckled and nodded, looking satisfied.
“No need to be so frightened, now.”
“Yes. I’ll take a look.”
Thunk.
I set the appraisal case on the table.
Fitting the monocle to my eye, I took the watch and peered into its core.
─Tick, tick.
The second hand’s sound was grating on my nerves as ever. I studied the fine motion of the mainspring and the movement of the meshing gears.
The artisan’s mark engraved into each and every part, the Mana Stone that formed the core of the Artifact.
To the naked eye it was quite exquisite, but the grain of mana I glimpsed through the Virus’s eyes told an entirely different truth.
“Might I ask who claimed it was a fake?”
The Goering collateral pointed ahead. A black-haired man in a coat unsuited to summer.
I set the watch down and said flatly.
“It’s a fake.”
“See, I knew it…… huh? What did you say?”
“Very cunning work. This was made to deceive, and deliberately so. The alloy ratio of the casing and the elasticity of the mainspring closely mimic the genuine article, but the flow of the core Mana Stone movement is subtly off.”
At that, Halbert’s face went crimson. All at once, like some blazing blast furnace-
“Th-that’s absurd──! You─! You there─ do you even know what this is─?!”
“Yes. A mana-shield Artifact.”
“……Ah, I know that much, but-“
“It will activate, at least. But since it’s a product that only imitates the function, the performance will probably…… And once it activates, it won’t work a second time, either.”
“…….”
Halbert Goering deflated in an instant, fizzling out. He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose as though a wave of dizziness had come over him.
“After what I paid for it, that swindling son of a bitch……”
The other nobles watched for his reaction, but only for a moment.
Claiming they too had something worth appraising, they scrambled off, and the man who had called it a fake extended his hand to me.
“A pleasure to meet you. Shannon Wright. I’m serving as the trade advisor for this voyage. It’s my first time meeting a master-grade Appraiser.”
“Ah…… yes.”
The moment I shook his hand, playing the bumbling fool.
Thump—
My heart heaved heavily. I stared at his face. No, more precisely, past his disguise.
Thump—
The Virus shook violently, reconstructing the skin plastered over his surface.
Thump─
This one was disguised too.
An unfamiliar name, an unfamiliar face, unfamiliar attire, but the archive of my memory pulled out the answer in a heartbeat.
Thump─
Before my Regression, a businessman who had kneaded the very veins of the Empire.
The snake bastard who had amassed his fortune by selling my name.
Viktor Haim.
* * *
A captain’s cabin with a clear view over the bright sea.
Beside Captain Erio, the mate continued his report.
“Excluding the crew, all 3,135 passengers have been accounted for. We are currently maintaining a speed of 22 knots, and at this rate we are set to reach our destination in seven days. Weather conditions are favorable, and the output of the mana engine is likewise stable.”
“Good work. You may go.”
“Yes, sir!”
As the mate left, a certain man slowly approached Erio’s side.
“I hear there was a bit of a commotion in the lounge?”
Erio asked obliquely.
Shannon Wright answered with a faint smile.
“Just a little something. It was amusing.”
“……Are you all right?”
To the question of whether he was all right, he said nothing. It was a silence that meant he was not.
“So then, are you to be cast out of the Empire forever now, too?”
Shannon Wright.
That was his current name. Of his many names, the one most widely known in the Empire was the businessman Viktor Haim.
“The Sentinels are after me. You know how it is. In the Empire, there’s nothing more terrifying than them, worse than any death sentence.”
He wore a self-mocking smile.
“Is it because of the Alchemia incident?”
“Yes. The Empire’s delusions and violence toward the Ezenheim have only grown worse. Even though we were the ones who were attacked.”
Alchemia, the key stronghold that had laundered the funds of ethnic minorities and aided their escape.
The plan to ferry out his kinsmen disguised as skilled laborers had been thrown into disarray by a wildcard named Maximilian.
“A pity. The ship’s owner, Mr. Morgan, wished to lend his aid as well, but the situation was simply too urgent.”
“It’s fine. Just being aboard this ship is help enough for me.”
“…….”
The captain wordlessly held out a single document.
“……A request for cooperation. It seems an agent from a directly-affiliated agency is aboard. It doesn’t appear to be solely on your account, but be careful. I wouldn’t recommend drawing people’s eyes unnecessarily.”
Viktor Haim gave a small laugh and shook his head.
His creed was always the same.
“No. On the contrary, blending in among them is the perfect disguise. A proud noble draws less suspicion than a beggar skulking in the shadows……”
* * *
Meanwhile, in the Prestige Lounge.
Halbert Goering and Viktor Haim had already left, but the nobles and businessmen each drew out their valuables and laid them before me.
“Master, take a look at this one too.”
“How strong is the grain of mana dwelling in this sword, that is to say, whether it could become a famed blade……”
I appraised their belongings.
“A counterfeit. The mana is too uniform.”
“A crack formed during the polishing and cut its value in half, but if you take it to a good artisan, it can be restored.”
The mana dwelling within my own body. The property of Ebenholtz, quietly sinking into stillness, was something the Virus too was slowly coming to resemble. The Virus gazed upon the mana clinging to an object and conveyed its flow to me.
It was a process as natural as if the two of us had been one from the very start.
“──This one. Turns out you’re really something?”
A man strode over. The handsome young fellow who had won a first-class ticket gambling. Beside him was a noble lady.
He seemed to have charmed one already, and he certainly had the sort of face women would go for.
“A master-grade Appraiser. I don’t really know what that is, but this lady here says she has something she’d like appraised…… Ah, my name’s Yan.”
The young man introduced himself first, and the noble lady handed me a diamond necklace. A gem of red hues shimmering over a blue base.
“Might I trouble you for an appraisal?”
I glanced back and forth between the two of them, then let out a small smile.
“It’s genuine.”
“What? Just like that?”
“A Mana Stone diamond is easy to appraise.”
A diamond carries its own distinctive mana. A pulse radiating outward from the very heart of the ore.
“A Mana Stone is, by nature, formed from mana condensing together, so its grain is exceedingly natural. It’s like a fingerprint of the divine, something no human polishing could ever imitate. That diamond in particular……”
Somewhere in the midst of that, night fell.
I met with a crewman to receive the upgrade I’d been promised.
But before heading to the cabin, I first asked for a tour of the Titan.
“This is the boiler room.”
At the moment, I was sightseeing through the interior of the Titan.
“Move it, you lazy louts!”
“Oi, the pressure’s dropping! Feed in more Mana Stone!”
“I said bring more Mana Stone!”
A space where coarse shouts, the sound of burning Mana Stone, and countless engines all mingled together. Through that din, the Virus beneath my collarbone throbbed as if screaming.
Thump— Thump— Thump───!
The stokers here, the mechanics, and most of the engineers overseeing them, were Ezenheim.
Cockroaches, packed in astonishingly thick.
“The Titan’s staff are skilled laborers, handpicked from every corner of the Empire.”
At the crewman’s boastful explanation, I closed my eyes.
Suppressing the Virus’s pulse, I scouted out the single most critical position in the place. I gauged just which corner of it I ought to set my ‘Music Box’ in.
“Is it hot?”
the crewman asked.
“……Yes.”
“Haha, it’s the heart of the ship, after all. Can’t be helped. Let’s get out quickly.”
Afterward, the crewman showed me the major facilities, the dining hall and the banquet hall and the rest.
“Er, Mr. Eli. My apologies. We’d originally meant to give you a first-class cabin, but due to a recent revision of the law, first class is now permitted only to Imperial Arans with a proven lineage.”
“It’s fine.”
This crewman wasn’t an Ezenheim, and yet he showed not a trace of contempt toward ethnic minorities.
“Here is your second-class cabin. As a rule it’s two to a room, but for you, Appraiser Eli, we’ve made a special exception.”
He opened one of the second-class doors.
A space incomparably more comfortable than third class, and I had it all to myself.
“A private room. Hahaha.”
“……Thank you.”
“Not at all. Ah, and there’s a masquerade ball in the main hall tonight.”
The crewman produced an invitation from inside his coat.
“Any passenger in second class or above is entitled to attend. The Titan’s masquerade is famed even across the continent, so do be sure to join. And.”
Then, wiggling his eyebrows with a suddenly sly look on his face.
“It’d be such a waste to keep a private room like this all to yourself…… ahem. From second class up, there’s no night curfew whatsoever. Just, thought you should know.”
Watching him, a thought came to me.
“Well then. Rest easy.”
Must even a good man like this be sacrificed?
……
Late at night. Between the deluxe suites and first class, a banquet hall where mana lighting spilled down like a galaxy.
Wearing a silver mask that covered half my face, I mingled into that boisterous elegance.
The sweet melody of a string quartet flowed, and nobles clad in the finest silk gowns traced their steps.
I sank deep into a corner sofa and looked on at them.
The truth was, the setting itself was familiar to me.
I’ll say it now─ I am Maximilian of Ebenholtz. Which is to say, I am no naive innocent.
Before my Regression, I was a noble who had sampled nearly every form of pleasure there was, popular enough that some even called me something of a Casanova-
“Hello?”
Suddenly, someone sat down beside me.
“Mr. Eli Zella.”
She sank into the chair and looked at me.
“I had no idea you were a master-grade Appraiser. Then again, an Appraiser of that caliber could never get his hands on a Titan ticket. The Empire would never let you go.”
“…….”
Her eyes, visible beyond the mask, overlapped with the woman in the blue beret who had gotten me my ticket.
“May I ask what you’ll do once you leave the Empire? With an eye like that, you’d be welcome anywhere.”
I put on a rueful smile and replied.
“I’ll have to get by somehow. Though I don’t imagine things will be so very different outside the Empire.”
“Who knows. The blue bird shows itself anytime, anywhere, doesn’t it?”
It was a proverb from the Scasey region of Highland. The blue bird meant hope, and that bird, fond of clear water, nested especially along the clean streams of Scasey.
“There has to be a clean stream where I’m headed for the bird to come at all.”
At my answer, she let out a faint laugh.
Of course, she’d been sounding me out one more time.
“Are you an Imperial officer?”
“No.”
She shook her head and gazed out at the night sea beyond the window.
“If I were, I’d have arrested you before you ever boarded. I’m just…… one of the audience, hoping this ship reaches its destination safely.”
And with that, she offered me a gloved hand.
“Shall we dance?”
Beyond the mask, a smile spread. A bright, crinkling smile.
She was a rather charming person.
I gladly took her hand, but when she made to rise, I didn’t let myself be pulled up with her.
“……What is it?”
I asked the puzzled woman.
“Your name.”
People of her sort were usually obsessed with hiding their identity, but.
“It’s unfair for you to be the only one who knows my name.”
She was anything but ordinary, so if I could, I wanted to know it.
She hesitated for a moment, then burst into a soft laugh.
“……Only you get to know. In exchange, don’t run. Because I told you a lie.”
As though drawn in by the hand I held tight, she settled lightly onto my lap.
Pressing her lips close to my ear─ she whispered low.
“I’m not from Scasey.”
The name that spilled from her mouth transformed the mood of this voyage in an instant.
“Charlotte von Eus Grossman.”
My lips stopped.
It felt as though a great weight had swung and teetered in my mind.
“…….”
“…….”
Beyond the masks, we gazed at each other in silence.
A rather special stillness settled over us.
──Grossman.
A surname that would never be erased from the Empire’s history, a war-criminal house that would remain in the records even after the Empire’s fall.
Her elder brother, Kurt Grossman, would in time become the Empire’s second-in-command.
Before my Regression, Grossman had been sentenced to death at the war crimes tribunal, but his younger sister, Charlotte, had not.
On the contrary, she had risen to high office with the respect of the Republic.
She had opposed the Empire’s racist policies and its brutality, and during the war she was a great figure who, using her brother’s standing, saved countless ethnic minorities.
“……What. Have you gotten scared?”
She laid a hand on my cheek and asked.
“No.”
I met her eyes and murmured.
“It puts me more at ease, actually.”
As if she understood my words, a ‘well, look at you-?’ sort of smile spread across her lips.
* * *
On the night the masquerade was in full swing, the Titan’s boiler room.
There, Viktor Haim received a covert message. It was an urgent dispatch from「Veil」, the heart of the Revolutionary forces.
[ The Empire is hunting you. There is an entrance to Veil in Okrasey, Highland.]
“──Oi. Not enjoying the masquerade? Heard it’s famous.”
At the voice that suddenly reached him, he hastily folded the letter and tucked it away.
Haah……
As he turned with a sigh, a man revealed himself out of the darkness.
Zentra’s key operative, ‘Arshtel’.
“…….”
Viktor Haim looked at him. At present he was disguised as one of the Titan’s chiefs of security.
“No time for play, so get moving properly. There are Imperial bastards mixed in aboard the Titan.”
“Oh~ is that so?”
Arshtel tossed a Mana Stone into the furnace.
Fwoooosh──!
The blazing Mana Stone bathed the two men’s faces in blue.
It was a bit of a battle of wills.
Zentra was branded as part of the Revolutionary forces by the Empire, but the Revolutionary forces didn’t see it that way. Zentra itself didn’t see it that way either.
To put it simply, it was the difference between anarchism and republicanism.
And yet the reason they cooperated was-
“Well, fine. In the end we want the same thing, don’t we?”
Because a great evil called the Empire existed.
For the sake of the Empire’s fall, revolutions of different kinds functioned as one.
Only until the Empire collapsed.
“…….”
Viktor Haim turned without a reply and left the boiler room. Arshtel asked.
“Oi. Where are you going?”
“……The ball. You just told me to go, didn’t you?”
“Ah. That was a joke. Can’t you hang around with me?”
“You lunatic.”
Viktor let out a snort of laughter, and Arshtel chuckled too, leaning against a pipe.
And so, behind the great furnace of the boiler room where they talked.
In an unseen crevice.
……Tick.
Very faintly, very small, the mainspring of a Music Box was winding, slowly, ever so quietly.
……Tick.
Inside it, most likely.
……Tick.
lay a certain knight’s ‘malice’.
~~~
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