Chapter 86
When dealing with people, I tended to focus intently on their eyes.
The contraction of their pupils, the movement of their eyes—and, based on those things, their actions and words, their tone, and the tremor in their voices. If I observed all of that, I could obtain a great deal of information.
Well, no matter how I put it, how could a person observe and judge all those things? If that were possible, they would be no different from a god.
So I generally focused on extracting as much information as possible.
In that sense, if I dared to give my judgment...
"Oh my, why did I help you? Of course, it was because I was moved by your words!"
If I dared to assess the woman named Sara Valentis standing before me...
"Could there be any other reason?"
Suspicious. Extremely so.
***
Going back in time.
Surprisingly, my meeting with Sara proceeded quite smoothly.
After hearing my request to enter the [Ashen Troupe] where she worked, reveal my identity, and speak with her, she had agreed.
To be honest, I was secretly relieved.
If she had refused my request, I had even considered infiltrating the troupe carefully and meeting with her alone.
Ah, of course, that would have been a last resort. My first thought had been to request support from the Nebula ducal family and have someone from [White Shadow] assigned to me.
In any case, it was fortunate that I no longer had to take such a long detour.
"Hello."
The Sara Valentis I met was a very gentle-looking beauty, notable for her lush pink hair.
Her overwhelmingly beautiful voice was enough to be called heavenly.
It was soft and gentle, yet perfectly pleasant to listen to.
As I listened to that voice, I thought to myself,
'There's mana in her voice.'
"Oh my, I'm sorry for showing up so suddenly."
"No, it's fine. Ah! You seem to have been standing for a while. Why don't you sit over there and have some tea while we talk?"
The vocal cords are a sensitive part of the body.
The voice changes depending on how they vibrate.
If one simply used mana to strengthen the vocal cords indiscriminately, it would instead produce a strange-sounding voice.
That was why singers and famous theatrical troupes passed down the method of using mana to strengthen the vocal cords and produce a beautiful voice as a closely guarded secret.
However, Sara standing before me was not moving her mana at all.
Unless she was an absurdly powerful person capable of deceiving even my eyes, there was no explanation for the mana that naturally permeated her voice even while she spoke so casually.
'An awakened ability.'
It was a trait that could never appear if she had obtained that beautiful voice by forcibly strengthening her vocal cords with mana.
There was no reason to maintain such an effect during ordinary conversation, and doing so would consume an enormous amount of concentration.
Click.
As I sat in the place she had shown me, thinking about Sara, she smiled and offered me some black tea.
"Ah, thank you."
"Don't mention it. Ah, I didn't know this either, but Bell, you've awakened your mana, haven't you?"
I looked at Sara.
She appeared perfectly calm as she drank her black tea with an utterly composed expression.
Seeing her like that, I gave an awkward little laugh and opened my mouth.
"Oh dear. You've caught me."
"Hehehe. Because you weren't bewitched by my voice."
So she was openly revealing information just like that.
"Bewitched?"
"Ah, yes. Perhaps it's because of my awakened ability, but whenever people hear my voice, they all become rather dazed."
"You're an ability user."
"Yes. Ah, do you perhaps dislike ability users?"
At her question, I let out a carefree laugh as though it were nothing important and opened my mouth.
"Of course not. Some people say they reject and hate ability users, but I'm not one of them."
Well, [Organization] did hate ability users, though.
"Ah, that's a relief."
She showed no particular reaction to my words and simply seemed relieved.
As I drank the black tea she had offered me and our conversation paused for a moment, I slowly examined her.
'No poison.'
Before coming here, Bellias had made a special magical artifact, deeming this place dangerous.
It coated my tongue in a way that would naturally neutralize any poison if it came into contact with one.
However, the distinctive mana I felt on my tongue did not react in any particular way, so there was no poison.
Sip.
"Come to think of it, Bell, why did you agree to meet with me?"
"Ah, I'm sorry. I met an artist I admire and completely forgot my purpose without realizing it."
"Oh my."
Sara gave a small laugh at my words and ran her fingers through her wavy pink hair.
"Hehehe. You're good at flattery, aren't you?"
"Haha. I'm not the sort of person who can offer empty compliments."
Talk with someone and earn their goodwill.
Draw out their reactions.
It was one of the easiest ways to obtain information.
"The reason I came was that you were the only person who acted after receiving my letter. So I wanted to know what you were thinking when you decided to act."
"Ah..."
Sara gave a small nod at my words, then calmly opened her mouth in a slightly higher voice.
"Oh my, why did I help you? Of course, it was because I was moved by your words!"
"You were moved?"
"Yes, of course. I could feel your burning artistic spirit in that short paragraph, you see? And it made me ashamed. Just as the letter said, once suppression begins, it will slowly tighten around our throats like an unavoidable death."
That was why I helped you.
"I don't know how much my small cry will help, though."
As I watched her smile faintly while saying that, I became certain.
Suspicious.
***
Back at the lodging where Bellias and I were staying.
After returning there, I hung my clothes over a chair and drank the cold water Bellias handed me.
"So, what is your assessment of Sara?"
"Suspicious."
"Why?"
"Because she was too consistent."
"Consistent?"
I nodded at Bellias's question.
Yes. She had been far too consistent.
Should I call it her emotional responses, or perhaps the changes in her expressions?
To put it simply, she had no humanity.
Her smiling expression, her moved expression, her bashful expression. Every one of them had been too perfect.
It had even felt as though I were looking at a doll.
Moreover, the timing had been far too perfect.
"So let's stay on guard for now."
Of course, I had no intention of acting immediately based on such thoughts alone.
It was merely a suspicion.
Bellias seemed to understand what I meant and nodded.
"Then shall we have [White Shadow] keep watch on her?"
"Yes. I think that's best."
***
"Hehehe."
After Abel left, Sara hummed softly as she stared at the spot where he had been sitting.
"Was it a success?"
Yes, it must have been.
She had deliberately behaved that way to arouse suspicion, so it would have been stranger if she had failed.
She was the marquee star of the [Ashen Troupe], after all.
She had realized long ago that if her acting was too perfect, it would only make people feel that something was unnatural.
However, the Bell who had just left—ah, his real name was Abel, wasn't it?
In any case, during her conversation with Abel, she had performed quite blatantly—in short, she had acted perfectly.
All of it had been meant to make him suspect her and draw his attention.
She had been worried about whether it would work, so she was truly relieved that it seemed to have succeeded.
"Phew."
As Sara savored that small sense of accomplishment, she let out a quiet sigh and recalled the directive she had received from [Organization] once more.
[Help [Lainas], who are about to make a move this time.]
A short sentence, if a short sentence there ever was.
She wondered whether her superiors understood that commands this short were actually extremely difficult to carry out.
'What's the point of becoming an executive?'
She was still in a position where she received orders like this.
And on top of that, she was being told to help those lunatics who attacked even their own comrades simply because they were ability users?
It was a situation so frustrating that she could hardly sigh enough.
She was being told to help the very group that had drawn their swords the instant they learned she was an ability user while they were introducing themselves during a previous joint operation.
'Endure. Endure. If I give up, everyone will only become unhappy, right?'
I'll just endure it.
Thinking that, Sara drank her black tea to calm her body and mind.
Crack.
No, even though she had drunk tea to soothe her body and mind, the thought of her circumstances came to mind again, and Sara unconsciously clenched her hand so tightly that she shattered the teacup.
She was already under enormous stress from living on land, something that was never supposed to be part of her fate.
And they had given her an order like this on top of that?
"Phew..."
Endure. I had to endure it. For the sake of our people.
It was truly a rotten situation, and participating in a criminal organization like this was irritating enough.
But what irritated her most of all was her own helpless position. Thanks to the pact, she could not resist their—no, to be precise, the boss of [Organization].
"Grr..."
"You look troubled."
Just as she was lamenting her circumstances, she heard the voice of a middle-aged man.
The moment she heard that voice and confirmed its owner, she frowned and activated her awakened ability.
[----]
Sound.
An attack that could neither be defended against nor evaded.
The overwhelming sound that burst from her mouth was so powerful that if an ordinary person had been here, they might have instantly lost their eardrums to it.
The surroundings trembled from the sound alone, but the man calmly opened his mouth.
"Oh dear. That's unfortunate. I had already punctured my eardrums before coming here, you see."
The man's face was filled with nothing but mockery as he said that.
His expression seemed to say, You think you can defeat me with an attack this weak?
'Ha!'
She knew.
She knew at least the weaknesses of her own ability.
But then, you didn't know about this, did you?
The name of her awakened ability was simple.
[Sound]
It was an ability that allowed her to imbue her voice itself with mana and use it to attack her enemies.
In truth, it was difficult to call this ability cost-effective, or to say that its exchange rate was favorable.
Imbuing sound with physical force consumed an enormous amount of mana.
Honestly, it was such a terribly inefficient ability that it was cheaper to rupture an enemy's eardrums with an enormous sound than to imbue sound with physical force.
In fact, despite rising to the executive level within [Organization], the organization's assessment of her was quite harsh.
The fact that she was living an acting career in a city where she had never intended to be was enough to show just how poorly she was regarded.
However, she continued developing her ability even in those circumstances.
Sound was a wave.
A wave was a vibration generated in one place that spread in all directions through matter.
Then what if...
Could she use that to cause some kind of phenomenon?
Crash.
As her voice changed, the teacup holding the black tea began to shatter.
The chair, the desk, the mirror. As everything began to shake, the man finally started looking around him.
But.
[Too late!]
[Aaaaaah!!!]
Resonance.
A phenomenon in which the amplitude is greatly amplified when the natural frequencies of objects coincide.
And what would happen if that occurred inside the human body?
"Guh!"
What else could happen?
Even a small resonance caused severe discomfort and pain. But if the resonance were powerful?
Internal bleeding in the organs would be the bare minimum, and if it were severe, the resonance could even damage the organs. That was how powerful the phenomenon was.
Sara's eyes as she watched the man pour blood from his mouth were cold beyond measure.
"Phew... Sailor. I believe I told you not to show yourself before me, didn't I?"
There was someone who had tried to attack her when she had been cooperating with [Lainas], wasn't there?
The person in question was the middle-aged man standing before Sara: Sailor, an executive of [Lainas].
After that, she had angrily told him never to show himself again. Yet who would have expected the [Lainas] operative named in [Organization]'s order to help [Lainas] this time to be Sailor?
At that realization, Sara narrowed her eyes in disbelief and glared at Sailor, who was looking at her with hatred.
"Grr... Damn ability user."
"Ha. I wondered why you were trying to speak to me. So you did it to mock me?"
He probably couldn't hear this, either.
He was a madman who had destroyed his own eardrums because he knew she would attack him.
But why would someone like that calmly try to speak to her?
He had probably chosen this foolish course of action to mock her ability.
Rational justification and plausibility had nothing to do with it. That was typical of [Lainas], who blindly rejected ability users.
Just how much did they hate ability users that they would even tear apart their own eardrums?
"Phew."
Yes, forget it. Forget it.
Having landed a blow, Sara decided that the debt for the injury she had suffered in that sudden ambush was repaid, then looked around the reception room, which had been reduced to a complete mess.
Thud thud thud thud.
Before long, she squeezed her eyes shut at the sound of countless footsteps heading toward the room, then slowly opened them and turned her head to look at Sailor, whose damaged organs were making him writhe.
"Shall we get up?"
Organ damage. It was obviously a serious injury, but would a man named Sailor really become combat-incapacitated from merely this much?
There was no way.
Perhaps because he sensed no one approaching him, or perhaps because he felt the presence of the countless people coming here.
Sailor's body, which had been pitifully writhing as though to put on a show, suddenly came to a stop.
Swish.
"Hmm... Cough. Oh dear. What a shame."
Sailor stood up from his seat with a calm expression, vomiting blood as he did so.
He looked at the fragments of organs mixed in with the blood he had coughed up, smiled ferociously, and gazed at Sara, who sat before him with her arms folded and her legs crossed.
Sara looked at Sailor haughtily, then moved her mouth widely to convey her words to him.
[Get. Out. Right. Now.]
The message was unmistakably an order for him to leave.
"Hah!"
Using his muscles to compress his damaged organs, Sailor smiled lightly at the approaching footsteps.
"I'll come back late tonight."
Before long, Sailor climbed through the broken window and went outside. Sara felt overwhelmed by the presence of the people who had now drawn completely near.
'Oh, seriously.'
What excuse could she give to make them accept the fact that the reception room had been reduced to such a mess?
"Haa..."
And so, Sara let out another deep sigh.