Chapter 42
The unpleasant emotion welling up from his chest made Abel frown unconsciously as he ran a hand through his hair.
"Ah, seriously..."
Abel did not particularly harbor any ill will toward Karon.
Maybe he could just make up for the trouble by dumping plenty of work on him later?
I'll bury you in work until you die. That was the full extent of his feelings.
He felt nothing beyond that.
...
Was it because Karon had acted insolently toward him?
Abel was not yet the official heir, and he was not petty enough to get angry over something so trivial.
Moreover, Abel knew the importance of information better than anyone after working as an operative in his past life.
If a spy had the ability to deal with master-level experts, Abel could tolerate this much trouble.
In fact, Abel had overlooked Karon's insolence precisely because he was capable of it.
...
The bomb that had broken through his defenses at the end?
Failing to anticipate it had been his own fault.
Abel was not thick-skinned enough to call someone who had faced him with all their strength a coward.
No, if anything, he would have been impressed by Karon's ability to use every bit of his power as a decoy for his final move.
Yes. That would have been the case if he had not used the close-quarters combat he had learned in his past life to become an operative—techniques engraved into his very soul—for that final attack.
...
Abel immediately began coating his mouth, throat, and lungs entirely in mana.
He inhaled the lit cigar in his hand as it rapidly burned down.
It was unpleasant.
Abel could not suppress the unpleasant emotion surging from his chest.
He was so uncomfortable that he could not endure it without soothing the feeling with cigar smoke.
"Fwoooooooooosh."
He began exhaling all the cigar smoke filling his mouth and lungs.
The smoke he exhaled grew thick enough to obscure Abel's face.
Unpleasant. So unpleasant.
Thinking that, Abel tightly crushed the end of the cigar, which had been reduced to nothing but a butt, in his hand.
Crack.
Abel hated the past life he had lived as an operative.
Of course, he could not do anything about the habits of gathering information and piecing together deductions that he had developed as an operative, so he had simply accepted them and carried on living.
No, if anything, the enjoyment of putting the pieces together made that hatred less severe.
But physically moving his body was different.
He hated the operative he had been.
And now he was supposed to use the close-quarters combat he had learned to become that operative he hated so much?
I became an operative, and because of that, my parents' lives fell apart?
He hated it enough to feel as though insects were crawling all over his body.
He would almost rather have his cigar taken away.
...
After running a hand through his hair, Abel gazed at the smoke filling the area around him with slightly unfocused eyes.
"Annoying."
Abel stared blankly at the smoke and muttered in a low voice.
Yes, he was annoyed.
He was annoyed by this entire situation, in which memories of the past life he had deliberately ignored had resurfaced.
He was annoyed by the feeling of insects crawling all over his body after using close-quarters combat for the first time in a long while.
"Ah, whatever."
Karon had said he would swear loyalty if Abel subdued him or left him grievously injured.
Using a major technique was bothersome, and if Karon ended up injured because of it, Abel would be the one to lose out.
So Abel was fighting on the assumption that he would subdue Karon.
"You said there'd only be aftereffects even if your limbs were accidentally blown off, right?"
As far as he remembered, divine power and medicine had advanced enough that even having one's limbs severed would only leave aftereffects.
Surely, as a member of the ducal family's elite unit, [Dark Shadow], Karon would be taken care of somehow if an accident happened.
Abel decided to think of it that way.
...
Abel extended his index finger and began concentrating the surrounding smoke above it.
Krrrck.
A creepy sound of something slipping out of place and twisting.
As though responding to Abel's unpleasant emotions, an unusual noise began to echo through the air.
.
.
.
Karon was watching the scene from a short distance away.
"That is..."
The attack that concentrated smoke in one place before releasing it was a technique he had clearly seen during Abel's battles with Kaizen and Bella.
But it was different. Something was different.
"Hey."
"..."
The moment Abel's voice reached him, Karon immediately readjusted his weapon and charged toward Abel.
His mana was already nearly depleted because his final move had failed, but he had no time to think about that now.
It was an instinctive action. If he did not attack now, he would be in danger.
"Shall we have some quality time together?"
Looking at Karon charging toward him, Abel released the smoke that had been compressed to its limit with a slightly off-kilter smile.
It was not [Jupiter].
What Abel needed right now was not a huge attack that would end everything in one blow.
He was not that angry, but he needed a stage on which to relieve even a little of this unpleasant emotion.
It was the technique he had used when capturing the mage Heros in the imperial capital.
————!!!
The technique that released smoke compressed to the extreme in an instant, creating a sort of mana-vacuum zone, spread across the abandoned city once again.
***
On a hill overlooking the entire abandoned city where Abel and Karon were fighting.
...
From the hill, Mist quietly watched the battle between the two men.
She had been faintly impressed by Abel's maneuver using his smoke clones,
and she had admired Karon's attacks, which utilized the superfast movement of a member of [Dark Shadow].
And finally, Karon's last move.
"That is..."
A bomb with overwhelming power, powerful enough to break through her master's defenses.
But a bomb whose range was narrowed to the extreme in inverse proportion to its power.
Mist knew that bomb.
No, she had never seen the bomb itself before.
But she knew of alchemical bombs that limited their range while maximizing their power.
And among all the alchemists Mist knew, there was only one who could make a bomb of that caliber.
[Long time no see.]
As Mist guessed the identity of the bomb's maker, a clear voice rang inside her head.
There was only one being who communicated by driving words directly into her mind rather than using sound.
When she turned around, a figure in a robe concealing its entire body was silently looking at her without making a sound or revealing any presence.
The moment she noticed the figure, Mist slowly bowed at the waist.
"It truly has been a long time."
There were only three people before whom she bowed: the head of the Nebula ducal family, her master Abel, and finally—
"Boss."
The boss of [Dark Shadow].
"It really is good to see you after so long, Boss, but there is one thing I would like to ask."
Oooooong.
Straightening from her bow, Mist began to stir her mana.
Karon was carrying a bomb made by Boss?
If it was something Boss had given Karon at his request, that was understandable.
But the timing was far too coincidental.
Boss had appeared immediately after the bomb she had made detonated?
Tap.
"Could it be...?"
It was suspicious. Far too suspicious.
Tap.
"That everything happening right now..."
The distance between the two gradually narrowed.
Tap.
"Was arranged by you, Boss?"
If that was the case, then, even as a member of [Dark Shadow], Mist intended to act for the sake of her master, Abel.
...
[...]
The situation was on the verge of exploding.
In that situation, the first to move was the boss of [Dark Shadow].
[Ugh. Too close.]
After sending Mist a telepathic message, Boss took a step back and shook her head.
[First, the answer to your question is no.]
...
[It is true that I sent Karon a bomb I made.]
The fact that she had blown up a plain near the Empire to make that bomb was a secret.
...
[But all of this was Karon's own doing. I didn't give him any such order...]
Mist could not believe it.
The moment that thought occurred to her, Mist immediately took action.
Since she did not sense any particular hostility toward Master Abel, she did not use force.
Tap.
[I said, don't come closer!]
The two of them had drawn so close in an instant that their clothes might have brushed.
In that situation, Mist slightly leaned out and spoke while looking at Boss, whose robed face remained hidden by special magic.
"Is that really true?"
[Ugh...]
"If you have no intention of answering..."
Mist spread both arms wide and continued.
"I'll hug you."
[!!!]
She had discovered Boss's weakness entirely by chance.
It had happened when Mist, who had reduced her presence to the level of a pebble, came into contact with her.
Seeing Boss recoil and retreat in a fit of convulsions at that moment, Mist had unwittingly realized her weakness.
"You disliked people—or rather, their mana, didn't you?"
[Uuuugh...]
Swish.
When Boss said nothing, Mist began moving her outstretched arms.
"Do you feel like answering now?"
[Sigh... Fine. I understand. Move aside for now.]
At Boss's firm answer, Mist relaxed her stance and stepped away from her.
[Ugh. I never expected you to make a move like that...]
Boss looked at the now-distant Mist with a sulky voice, as though throwing a tantrum.
She had truly never expected that girl to make a move like this, and had been so flustered that she had almost panicked.
Some time later
After feeling her fiercely pounding heart settle down, Boss began to speak while maintaining her distance from Mist.
[First, I didn't order Karon to do this.]
...
[I merely asked him. It was something I requested after the Duke was poisoned and talk began of choosing the next duke from among the illegitimate children.]
As she spoke, she took three steps back from Mist, considering the appropriate distance to keep from people.
"What was the request?"
[I asked him to find out the strength of any illegitimate child the Duke took a liking to.]
"...Why would you ask him something like that?"
[Sigh... It was nothing but curiosity. There was no political reason or anything like that. I assure you.]
From Boss's perspective, even as she made the request, she had half wondered whether such a person could really exist.
The Duke she remembered was a monster among monsters.
Someone of the same bloodline acknowledged by such a being?
[As the boss of [Dark Shadow], I naturally obey the heir to the Nebula ducal family, so I had no opportunity to satisfy this curiosity.]
That was why she had made the request.
She had thought that Karon, whom she had saved, would gladly accept it.
From Karon's perspective, it was a request from the benefactor who had saved him from that plague-ridden city.
And it would satisfy his curiosity as well.
The two circumstances had aligned perfectly.
[But I never expected this...]
When she had been asked to make a bomb that only increased destructive power, she had suspected something might happen.
But because of her personality, which was weak to pushy requests, and
because of the perfectly reasonable thought that surely Karon would not actually charge head-on into Abel, this whole incident had come to pass.
After hearing everything Boss had said, Mist let out a sigh like a lament.
"Sigh... All this happened for such a trivial reason?"
[Ugh...]
"You could have simply asked Master Abel directly..."
'Ah, she can't.'
Boss's peculiar condition made her freeze whenever she approached people.
In keeping with that peculiarity, smoothly communicating with strangers was virtually impossible for her.
The answer was obvious when one considered that even speaking with people aloud was such a burden to her that she deliberately used telepathy magic instead.
...
[...]
A cold wind began to blow between the two of them as they realized that this entire mess had arisen from such a trivial reason.
And then it happened.
————!!!!
They sensed a massive movement of mana from the city.
It was not mana being released.
It was a strange sensation, as though all the mana in the atmosphere had moved at once.
Mist immediately looked toward the center of the city, where Abel and Karon had been moments before.
"What's that...?"
A sphere?
[Hee...]
As Mist was startled by the sphere that had suddenly appeared in the center of the city, Boss's voice began to sound inside her head.
[Fascinating, isn't it?]
A strange glint shone through the robe that concealed even her face.
[The mana in the atmosphere moved in an instant... Why?]
Her thoughts were spilling in every direction through telepathy magic, but she did not stop.
[Overwhelming density—— smoke——- diffusion—-?]
Telepathy magic was a form of magic that conveyed one's thoughts to another person.
The more intensely one thought, the more clearly those thoughts were transmitted, but very few mages used it.
Naturally, the difficulty was extremely high, since it was magic that sent one's mind into another person.
Moreover, it required a high degree of proficiency, and conveying information through words and writing was far more convenient than using telepathy, so few people used it.
But the boss of [Dark Shadow] wielded telepathy magic with enough mastery to hold a conversation through it.
Moreover, it was always active.
What would happen if such a being intensely formulated a hypothesis about something?
"Nngh..."
A massive amount of inner monologue suddenly overlapped and poured into her mind all at once.
[Then this?——No———-Ah, right———this hypothesis is——-]
As an enormous amount of information began slamming into her brain, Mist looked at the muttering Boss.
'Should I knock her out...?'
Yes, let's knock her out.
Mist raised the edge of her hand and approached Boss, but as more and more thoughts poured in with every step closer, she had no choice but to stop.
Approximately five minutes passed that way.
The sphere slowly began to collapse.
And the scene it revealed was—
"Kehuk!"
Karon hanging in the air, vomiting blood, with both shoulders pierced by Abel's smoke.