Chapter 59
Mist and Ariel were running swiftly through the train.
Abel, whose contact had suddenly been cut off.
It was a situation that made it impossible for Ariel not to feel uneasy.
'Abel!'
The man she had met after her regression, and with whom she had grown close enough to share her feelings.
To be honest, her impression at their first meeting had not been a good one.
He had seemed dangerous somehow, making him difficult to approach.
Of course, that feeling had faded with time.
If anything, without treating her as Saintess Ariel, his casual attitude—even playing around with a typewriter—had gradually made her feel a sense of familiarity.
'Please!'
She had roughly expected Abel to be a strong individual in his own right.
He had even said that there was nothing for him to learn at the academy and that he had plenty to do in House Nebula.
But that didn't mean she wasn't worried.
It was only natural to expect that the people planning this train assault were no ordinary individuals.
It was obvious that claiming not to be worried in such a situation would be a lie.
"..."
Unlike Ariel, who moved with worry and anxiety about Abel, Mist's heart was perfectly calm.
Ariel was worried because she had yet to see the full extent of her master's power, but Mist was different.
'If.'
What if someone overwhelmingly stronger than her master Abel had appeared and cut off his communications?
Then, from that moment on, it would be safe to assume that this train could not exist in this world.
'Hmm...'
Therefore, suppressing her presence, Mist leisurely slipped through the crowds aboard the train while quietly thinking about Abel.
Why had contact suddenly been cut off?
Because he had encountered a strong opponent?
Mist judged that wasn't the case.
It was a conclusion she could reach because she had often watched Abel fight.
'An opponent so strong that he wouldn't even have the leisure...'
Was that possible?
Was the opponent really strong enough that Abel had to stop relaying information and take the fight seriously?
And yet there was zero aftereffect of power from his battle with that opponent?
'Then...'
Mist's thoughts sank deeper and deeper into a labyrinth.
Ariel was worried, while Mist was suspicious.
The two of them moved quickly, each carrying their own thoughts.
"..."
"..."
And when the two arrived at the final place where Bellias had said Abel had activated the communicator, they had no choice but to stop.
Abel had undone the top buttons of his crew uniform, which had looked somewhat uncomfortable even to the two of them.
Abel had also tossed off the hat he had been wearing and swept his hair back, and his appearance radiated an overwhelmingly decadent yet wild charm.
A group of female students surrounded Abel.
Moreover, the sight of every one of those female students staring at Abel with unfocused eyes, as though they had been hit by some kind of mental attack, was enough to send a chill down one's spine.
'What in the world is this?'
Ariel was thrown into confusion.
She couldn't understand why the female students were looking at Abel with expressions like they were gazing at some cult leader, when she had expected a dangerous situation.
"..."
Mist silently began staring so intently that it seemed lasers might shoot from her eyes, as though she meant to etch Abel's image into her retinas.
"Hm?"
Perhaps he felt the gazes of the two women.
Abel, leisurely slipping out through the female students' encirclement as it opened like the Red Sea, spotted the two staring blankly at the scene.
Swish.
Abel looked around.
At the female students gazing at him with slightly unfocused eyes, as though he were some kind of cult leader.
Then he checked his own condition.
His clothes had been left open from feeling stifled, and his hair was disheveled, making it clear that he did not look like a normal person.
He looked suspicious in every possible way.
"It was a misunderstanding."
***
I dispersed the female students, who listened to me so well it was almost astonishing.
Well, I did so on the condition that I granted one last earnest request to take a picture of me like this.
[What?! You want us to take a picture together? No!! How could we dare! We just like you this way!!]
I still had no idea why they liked me looking like this until the very end, but in any case, the female students' assault had come to an end for now.
Then I explained the whole story to the two people who approached me.
"So..."
Ariel pressed a hand to her forehead, her expression saying that she couldn't understand whether what she had heard was real.
"That's true?"
"Yeah."
It sounds like a lie, but it's true.
Looking at her with that thought in my eyes, I watched Ariel avoid my gaze and let out a sigh.
"..."
And as Mist listened to the conversation between Ariel and me, she simply stared at me from a step away.
"Well, before we move, there's something I want to ask."
"Yes..."
I began asking Ariel about the strange points I had noticed so far.
For example, how to restore a possessed person to their senses.
"Ah, that's relatively easy. Since the person's mind is in another person's body to begin with, its stability is extremely poor, so applying mental healing with a simple use of divine power usually drives the possessing consciousness out."
"Hmm, really?"
Then I asked how we would find the possessed person.
At my question, Ariel looked back and forth between Mist and me before speaking.
"This will require Abel, Mist, and the help of Lord Bellias, whom we haven't seen yet."
"Us?"
"Yes."
Ariel avoided my gaze and held up her fingers.
"Even with possession, it's impossible to seize control of a possessed body immediately. People have egos, and unless the difference in level is unimaginably vast, the possessing consciousness will only be repelled, let alone suppress the host. So it generally has to fight for control for at least a week."
Hearing that, I roughly calculated when this train had departed.
"It hasn't even been a week since this train departed, has it?"
At least, that was how I remembered it.
This was a train picking up incoming students from all over the world in the first place.
Even if it traveled faster than the levitation train from my past life thanks to levitation magic circles, traveling worldwide was another matter.
They had managed this timeframe by using teleportation.
Ariel nodded in agreement at my words.
"Yes. Even at the fastest, it would take a week. Besides, everyone aboard this train is someone whose talent has been recognized."
It was only natural that they would have strong self-awareness, and that meant...
"The possession hasn't proceeded smoothly."
"Yes."
They had been possessed, but still retained their self-awareness.
In other words.
"We need to find someone whose behavior seems strange?"
At my answer, Ariel nodded as if to say I was right.
As long as someone was human, they would naturally resist if their body were suddenly taken from them.
And very violently, at that.
"Yes. That's the most standard way to find a possessed person."
At Ariel's firm confirmation, I brought up the biggest question I had felt so far.
"But, you know."
"Yes?"
"Why are you avoiding my gaze?"
For the record, from our first meeting until now, Ariel had not looked at me straight on.
At my question, Ariel covered her slightly flushed face with her palm and spoke.
"...It's too stimulating."
What did she mean by stimulating?
Seeing Ariel's gaze wandering around the vicinity of my undone top buttons, I could guess what she meant.
But was this level really enough to provoke such a reaction?
Suddenly curious, I spoke to Mist, who had done nothing but stare at me since arriving here and beginning her conversation with Ariel.
"...Mist, don't just stare at me. Say something, will you?"
"..."
Mist did not answer my question, merely staring at my disheveled clothes.
"Mist?"
Mist did not answer.
"Hey?"
Mist...
Swish.
"Ah, yes. Did you call, Lord Abel?"
"You..."
Mist finally answered me after fastening up my undone crew uniform again.
Seriously, how should I put it? Should I say she was honest about her desires, or that her desires were enormous?
Either way, Mist's reaction seemed to be one of the two, and it was so absurd that I couldn't even laugh.
"Phew..."
Well, it probably didn't matter.
"Bellias."
It would be a waste to spend any more time on this matter.
Thinking that, I activated the communicator and called Bellias, who had not said a single word until now.
[Yes. Did you call?]
"Yeah. You heard that, right?"
Bellias was the boss of [Shadow].
She was a direct descendant of House Nebula and the duke's only weak spot.
She sometimes seemed a little airheaded, judging from her occasional clumsiness and the fact that she had failed to anticipate Charon's rampage, but was she truly incompetent?
That was not the case, either.
[Yes.]
Since boarding this train, she had not sent any communications whatsoever.
Mist had discovered an object that could serve as evidence of heresy.
Ariel had confirmed the evidence of heresy and identified what that heretical power was.
I...
'Come to think of it, I was the incompetent one this time, wasn't I?'
Yes. This time, I had done nothing and fallen for the enemy's ploy.
Then what had the last person, Bellias, done?
"Did you confirm it?"
[I have already figured it out.]
From Ariel learning about the heretical power to arriving where I was now, at most about twenty minutes had passed.
[There are fifteen candidates in total.]
That was quite a lot.
"What criteria did you use to narrow down the candidates?"
[After the train departed and accepted the incoming students, I selected those who did not leave their compartments for several days as the highest-priority subjects of surveillance.]
So she had first selected as suspects those who had remained in their compartments to gain control after the possession began.
"Reasonable."
[Thank you.]
Perhaps because this was official business, her voice was quite businesslike.
It was a type I had encountered from time to time.
Someone who adopted an attitude suited to both work and private life.
I had even seen cases where someone's personality changed more severely than this, so Bellias was mild by comparison.
[Just a moment!]
Just as I was quietly admiring Bellias's rational method of identifying suspects, Ariel's voice cut in.
[This is our first time meeting and speaking. I would like to introduce myself, but I interrupted because I wanted to know the general information on those suspects first.]
Her expression as she said this was nothing short of urgent.
She had said they needed to act quickly, but since they did not even have a suspect yet, she seemed to be forcibly pretending to remain calm.
[Understood. I'll tell you now.]
Bellias began reciting the fifteen suspects she had identified.
Their backgrounds were extraordinarily impressive.
They were heirs to powerful figures or children of great merchants.
Otherwise, they were the names of geniuses who, despite being commoners, had proven their exceptional talent.
[Finally, the heir to Stellheim in the north, one of the Empire's four grand ducal houses.]
As she named the final suspect, a strange sense of déjà vu began to rise in my mind.
[Oh my... is that true?]
[Yes. I was surprised when I confirmed it as well, and I'm monitoring him now. Since he is showing increasingly strange movements, I believe he is highly likely to be one of them.]
I could hear Ariel and Bellias conversing in my mind, but I did not join in, focusing instead on the déjà vu I felt in my head.
Academy, romance fantasy, assault, possession, protagonist, and several other keywords.
In the process, I recalled once more the most fundamental premise of this world.
'But this world was a combination of two things, wasn't it?'
I might have forgotten it until now, but the Ariel before my eyes was the protagonist responsible for the [romance fantasy] side of this world.
That romance-fantasy protagonist had become embroiled in an academy assault, and among the possessed people, the heir to the northern grand ducal house was sitting there conspicuously?
It wasn't some brilliant deduction.
No, if I told another detective my thoughts, they might slap me and ask whether I called that deduction.
It had no rationality and was extremely lacking in objectivity.
There was nothing else to call it but an instinct based on intuition.
'That's him.'
The moment I had that thought, I immediately called Bellias, who was discussing the suspect with Ariel.
[Bellias.]
[Yes.]
[I don't know about the others, but the heir to that northern grand ducal house... What's his name?]
[Kairon de Stellheim.]
What kind of name was that? It practically screamed, "I'm the protagonist."
[Right. Anyway, Kairon—that guy is probably definitely the one. How do we lure him out?]
[What...? Lord Abel, he is still only a suspect, and we have not confirmed whether Kairon has truly been possessed.]
[I know.]
***
Kairon de Stellheim.
The heir to one of the four grand ducal houses responsible for the northern region of the Empire.
Black hair and cold eyes.
Kairon was a man who could be considered the quintessential northern beauty.
Glance. Glance.
At the gazes of countless young noble ladies watching him, Kairon...
'How irritating...'
No, the person occupying that body was pretending to be expressionless while feeling displeased by the gazes pouring in from every direction.
"Phew..."
I can't take this anymore.
Kairon thought that people would find it strange if someone like him went too long without showing his face.
So Kairon had visited a place aboard the train resembling a banquet hall, but the possessor could no longer endure it.
Once that thought arose, Kairon immediately left the banquet hall.
‘I’ve shown my face several times already, so this should be enough now.’
Twitch.
Kairon's original consciousness writhed strangely, struggling to break free of the possessor's control.
Mocking that consciousness, the being occupying Kairon's body quietly thought:
'From now.'
One week.
Kairon's ego was strong, so taking over the body was more difficult than expected, but with that much time, the possessor would be able to make this flesh entirely its own.
There were already four people, including the possessor, undergoing possession inside the train.
It would only take a little longer.
However, Kairon's thoughts did not continue any further.
As Kairon's body headed toward its compartment, it was teleported elsewhere in an instant.
[One successful.]