Chapter 62
"Lady Ariel, may I ask you one question?"
"Huh? Oh, yes. You may ask whatever you like."
Mist turned her gaze toward the two men lying unconscious after receiving Lady Ariel's affirmative answer.
Both men were presumed to be among the possessed people Lady Bellias had sent over.
They were both unconscious, with small bumps on their heads.
Swoosh.
She turned her head back and looked at Ariel again.
Click.
A weapon shaped like a pistol, with an extremely large and heavy frame that did not suit her at all.
One side was white, and the other was black.
They were a pair of pistols that contrasted with each other in every way.
Ariel was pulling back the slides and carefully inspecting them for any defects.
The sight looked very familiar.
"What mechanism causes those pistols to fire?"
Mist remembered.
She remembered how Ariel had moved a step ahead of Mist, who had been about to knock out the men teleported here.
She had stayed back to gauge Ariel's strength and see how she would act, but Ariel's actions had been truly astonishing.
Bang!
There was no need for questions and answers.
Without a moment's hesitation, Ariel had fired the pistols and struck the heads of the men teleported here, knocking them unconscious.
Unconscious? They had been shot, and merely passed out?
Mist had seen it clearly with her enhanced vision.
"The bullets Ariel fired clearly pierced their heads. How are they still alive?"
At Mist's questioning gaze, Ariel surprisingly had no trouble lifting the heavy pistol in her hand.
Click.
"It's all thanks to these pistols' abilities."
Special weapons made by the Order solely for the Saintess.
Their names.
"[Mercy] and [Judgment]. Those are the names of these pistols."
And their functions were extremely simple.
"Mercy is a weapon that attacks enemies with bullets containing nothing but pure divine power."
That made it highly effective against the undead and heretical powers.
Conversely, it had little effect on people.
In fact, if the bullets contained healing divine magic, they could even heal wounds.
"Judgment, on the other hand, is a pistol that fires bullets coated in divine power."
Unlike [Mercy], [Judgment] was a pistol made solely to deal with people.
"Then..."
"Yes. This time, I struck them with [Mercy], so I hit their heads with bullets containing nothing but pure divine power."
Naturally, even pure divine power could not reduce the kinetic energy of a fired bullet to zero.
That was probably why they had been knocked unconscious.
"Possession is a heretical power. And since divine power struck them in the head, they have probably escaped the possession."
Ariel said that and smiled brightly, looking genuinely delighted.
"Ah, I should contact Abel. Just a moment."
***
[I am being watched right now. This is a kind of trap. Be careful.]
That was the information Marcel had given me when he said this train would be attacked.
In truth, I had made quite a few preparations before boarding this train.
That was why I had asked Mist, Bellias, and Ariel for their cooperation and passed the information on to the chairman.
Our forces were already excessive, to put it mildly.
No, to begin with, it was as if the boss and one of the members of the duchy's most elite organization had appeared in an early episode.
I had never personally seen Mist's full strength, but since she had joined [Shadow], she was at least powerful enough to deal with a Master.
I had grown fairly close to Bellias and exchanged quite a few stories with her, making it easier to understand her full strength because she had openly revealed her powers.
She had said that she was hopelessly untalented at offensive magic, to the point of despair, and that the automatons she created through magitech were her main strength, right?
That was why the strongest automaton she had shown me was beyond anything I could have imagined.
'No, how are there three Master-class automatons...'
Three Master-class automatons, along with numerous other automatons possessing either top-tier or high-tier strength.
To put it simply, Bellias was powerful enough to destroy a small kingdom with her own hands.
On top of that, she even had self-destruct bombs that could drain all the mana from a Master-class automaton and lay waste to the surrounding area in an emergency.
Good grief, I couldn't believe it when I first learned that.
"I prepared this much, too."
Sitting in a surprisingly soft chair made of smoke, I muttered as I looked straight ahead.
"..."
His joints were completely compressed by my smoke, leaving him unable to move.
Blood was flowing from wounds all over his body.
Smoke had infiltrated his inner ears and ruptured his semicircular canals, leaving him without a sense of balance.
He was in a state of complete restraint.
To be honest, I had never intended to treat him this harshly.
It wasn't as if I had a hobby of destroying people.
"Good grief, you're tenacious."
But the problem was the persistence of the guy who had taken over Kairon's body.
I could still feel it now.
Even with all four limbs completely restrained, he was forcing himself to move so he could kill me.
This was only my second fight with a traditional knight, but they were really a pain to deal with.
"No, is that a trait of traditional knights?"
What, did he think he was a zombie?
As long as he was human, he should naturally have felt pain, yet he moved as though he were numb to it, which made him incredibly troublesome to fight.
Flinch.
I sighed at Kairon, who was trying to force his body to move once more in response to my words, and increased the pressure of the smoke.
Creak.
"Good grief. So, what is this trap you prepared?"
"..."
"I checked everything over, and you didn't even plant explosives or anything like that, did you?"
That was actually why I had joined the crew.
They had called it a trap, and I had thought that, if it really was one, they might even blow up the train itself.
Honestly, if I were planning to attack a train, I would have started by cleanly blowing it up instead of using heretical power or anything like that.
Then I would have used a bribed newspaper to launch a public-opinion campaign.
I would apply political pressure through public opinion, then strike the distracted [Crocus Academy].
Of course, there might be other plans to flesh it out or add to it, but it would be hard to deny that this would be effective.
"But what? Heretical power?"
If they were really planning to attack the train and [Crocus Academy], it was an option that should have been completely ruled out.
Not for any moral reason, but because it offered nothing in return for the effort.
To put it simply, it was as if the other side had suddenly set off a white phosphorus bomb when political pressure alone would have been sufficient.
Whatever the reason, setting off white phosphorus was absolutely unforgivable.
This use of heretical power was similar.
"You're being rash. Besides, I can't even tell what you're trying to do."
Sitting in my smoke chair, I muttered calmly as I smoked my cigar.
"You should have had information that Saintess Ariel would be coming here."
If that fact had not been known, and Ariel had come here while hiding her identity, there might have been some room for leniency.
But they had used heretical power, and that too when an opponent who could practically be called the natural enemy of possession magic was standing right in front of them.
It was full of holes—an operation riddled with them.
If someone had brought me the outline of this operation and suggested carrying it out, it would have been so riddled with flaws that I would have smashed their head in immediately.
"..."
The unidentified traditional knight who had taken over Kairon's body merely glared at me, grinding his teeth with his eyes blazing.
'Hmm.'
If I provoked him a little more, maybe I could get some information?
With that thought, I deliberately opened my mouth in an even more flippant and comical voice, perfectly suited to provoking him.
"You know this is a ridiculously stupid operation, right?"
I mocked the enemy's operation and—
"Ah, I just checked, and including you, there are four possessed people aboard this train, right? I just restrained them all."
I also told him that the comrades he was counting on had all been restrained.
But still.
"..."
He merely glared at me without so much as twitching, offering no further reaction.
'Hmm.'
So mockery didn't work, and he didn't trust his comrades either.
Had he given up on everything, then?
No, that wasn't it either.
Just look at those eyes. They looked as though he were staring at something hateful.
Someone who had given up on everything would never have eyes like that.
I knew from experience.
'Ah.'
Come to think of it.
"Good grief."
I hadn't said the thing that would provoke him most, had I?
"That's why an ability user stole your place."
Twitch.
'Bingo.'
"What was the slogan those ability-user haters used again?"
I recited the chant of the ability-user haters who occasionally marched through the streets, raising their voices.
[Ability users are the devil's power! Detain all ability users right now and execute every last one!]
"Did they say something like that?"
Flinch.
"What a masterpiece. There was no legitimate reason, nor any objective metric. They were just rejecting ability users out of fear."
"...No... legitimate... reason?"
Heh heh heh.
Even while suspended in midair, Kairon let out a small, mocking laugh as he muttered.
'Oh. Finally?'
"No legitimate reason..."
His voice was hoarse and rough.
"Don't make me laugh."
But Kairon—or rather, the entity possessing Kairon's body—looked at me as if I were something hateful.
"You don't know."
Mocking me.
"How precarious this world is right now."
And mocking me.
I focused on Kairon's mouth as it spoke to me in that rough voice.
It had been worth provoking him on purpose.
I had seen that type of person quite often.
People with their own beliefs who went into a fit whenever someone touched upon them.
Surprisingly, all you had to do was poke them with the right keyword, and they would spill everything, making them quite attractive as hostages.
'Now, let's see what he'll say.'
"You don't know."
"..."
"The truth of this world!"
Good grief, what a stale and cliché thing to say.
Thinking that, I calmly began enjoying the smoke from my cigar.
It was a luxurious cigar with a rich aroma, its almond scent amplified.
"The entire cause of this world's chaos!"
Perhaps it was because he saw me like that. Kairon gritted his teeth even harder and shouted until his throat nearly burst.
"It's you ability users!!!"
And?
"No legitimate reason? Discriminating blindly, without any objective metric?"
Don't make me laugh!!!!
"Because of you ability users, this world's barrier......."
He froze.
"Hmm?"
His voice suddenly cut off.
At the same time, Kairon's face, which had been filled with intense emotion, began turning blank in an instant.
[Stop.]
Along with it, an unidentified voice began to echo.
[Sailor, be careful with your reckless words and actions.]
A voice that sounded as though it were scolding someone burst from Kairon's mouth.