Chapter 88
My personal impression, I suppose—or should I call it an opinion?
There was a conclusion I reached in my previous life while traveling around various countries as an agent of the National Intelligence Service.
I thought of protests as the contagion of madness.
Peaceful protests?
They certainly existed.
If you asked whether every protest was violent, I could answer no.
But most of the protests I experienced and witnessed were, without exception, demonstrations involving the use of force.
In one country, people were dissatisfied with that country's system.
In another, the country's young people could no longer endure its countless corruption scandals and erupted in protest.
Or, absurd as it sounds, there had even been protests that erupted because a country lost in some sport.
When countless people began voicing the same opinion, humans naturally began to think, "Oh, is that really how it is?"
In such a situation, if a group formed and even one person resorted to violence, that violence spread like an infection.
Why was I saying this now?
"Hahahaha!! Resist oppression! We will never submit to repression!"
"I never thought I'd use the bombs meant for making artwork here. But this is surely the more worthwhile cause."
"What could be more noble! To submit to power, falling silent and collapsing like a reed before oppression and persecution? No! Even if the rough waves of the times engulf us, breaking through those waves by our own will is the nobler path! Fight, and we shall triumph!!"
Watching the procession carry out a protest through all kinds of violence in real time, I couldn't help thinking of it.
"Haa..."
***
Initially, there were no major violent clashes on the first day of the protest.
The artists weren't unintelligent to begin with, and they knew quite well that resorting to force here would distort the very nature of the protest.
The problem came on the second day.
There was no problem on the protesters' side, but the city receiving the protest was rife with problems.
For some reason—or perhaps because someone had issued orders—I didn't know which, the police and soldiers had been brought in to block the protesting artists.
"Good grief."
The police blocking the protest at first?
I could understand that.
As I'd said before, a considerable number of the artists currently in Marita were mana-awakened beings.
Considering that merely awakening mana granted strength incomparable to ordinary people's, even without becoming knights or mages, it was clear how dangerous this protest currently was.
The problem was the army—in other words, the fact that soldiers themselves had been dispatched.
The protesters could accept the police, but the army?
We had merely started a protest against the city's oppression, and they were mobilizing the army that defended this city?
This was the sort of thing that made the protesters' patience boil over audibly.
And just as if pouring water onto that boiling oil, one of the soldiers trying to suppress the protest with violence—
The conflict exploded.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!!! We are the vanguard of oppressed art!"
"You who have risked your lives for art. Now is the time to burn those lives away. We must fight with a sense of mission, with conviction!"
The soldier had used violence. That alone caused the protesters to begin gathering in one place, and their cries drew in the surrounding artists.
The second day's protest, boasting numbers incomparable to the first day, continued until late into the night.
"..."
On the rooftop of a building. I had been watching everything unfold, sitting on the railing and smoking a cigar, my chin propped on my hand as questions filled my mind.
'That's strange.'
Detecting the state of the protest through my smoke, I couldn't help thinking that.
Someone had said earlier that a soldier had tried to suppress the protest with violence, hadn't they?
The problem was that when the soldiers were deployed, they had basically been treating the protesters in an extremely peaceful manner.
It was probably an order from above. Never touch the protesters.
Yet one soldier had ignored that order from above and used violence.
[What the hell were you thinking?!]
[I'm sorry!]
Closing both eyes and observing the situation where the soldier who had first used violence was located, my question only deepened.
[I told you clearly, didn't I? Never provoke the artists protesting. And this carnage happens the instant that order is issued?!]
Should I call him the commander?
In any case, when someone who was obviously a high-ranking military official shouted at him, I saw a soldier standing before the commander, pale-faced and trembling all over.
[Really... I-I'm sorry!]
Trembling eyes and irregular breathing.
He looked plainly flustered and seemed unable to understand why the current situation had happened.
[Get the hell out!!!]
The soldier left the barracks as if fleeing at the commander's roar.
He lowered his head deeply and muttered.
[Why? No, why me?]
"Strange..."
Having seen the whole situation, I couldn't help thinking that.
A soldier had disobeyed his superior's orders?
If this protest had continued for a long time and the soldiers had built up a great deal of stress, I could at least understand it.
But it was the first day.
This happened on the very day the army was deployed?
It was strange.
It was so strange that I could instinctively feel how artificially everything was unfolding.
Fwoooosh.
Just then, as I brushed back my hair while feeling the cool yet somehow ominous wind blowing across the rooftop—
Tap.
Footsteps sounded behind me.
I had already been detecting my surroundings with smoke, so after identifying who those footsteps belonged to, I opened my mouth while smoking my cigar.
"You're here, Bellias?"
"Yes."
Boom!
At the same time, the sound of a bomb exploding in the distant center of the protesters.
I quietly watched the chaotic scene, which looked as if a civil war had broken out, then turned my head to look at Bellias.
"How is it? What's the situation?"
As soon as the protest began, I had asked her to investigate the situation inside the protest movement.
Where was the source of this protest, or who was the person who had fanned it into flames?
I handled the city, while she handled the protesters. The two of us had divided up the work to gather information.
At my question, Bellias shook her head from side to side, her expression slightly darkened.
"Hmm... It's not a very good situation."
Things were moving far too urgently.
The protesters running wild. The police and soldiers moving to stop them.
The situation in Marita, the city of artists, was advancing straight toward the height of chaos.
"I tried to find out as much as I could with my abilities. But it's too difficult to gather information while things are changing so rapidly."
If she obtained a piece of information, it was common for that information to become useless amid the chaos.
Given how quickly the situation was changing, it was only natural.
"Hmm."
At Bellias's words, I hummed nasally and looked at the protesters, whose numbers had swelled beyond measure.
It had certainly been fairly ordinary until just two days ago.
The situation had been a little tense because of the letter I'd circulated, but it hadn't been anywhere near the point of a protest breaking out.
Yet if a protest had broken out like this, I had assumed there must clearly be a source behind it.
"Did they flee?"
"I think that's probably what happened."
Instigators.
I'd assumed there would be some here, but they'd already withdrawn?
It was a suspicious situation—not merely shady, but foul enough to stink.
"..."
Tap.
As I watched the entire situation in silence, I began organizing everything that had happened so far in my head, tapping my thigh with a finger.
Tap.
A protest that had begun far too suddenly.
The city's response to that protest was strange as well—I couldn't decide whether to call it suspiciously hard-line or simply frantic.
Tap.
It was strange.
Anyone could naturally tell that provoking the protesters was a bad idea.
A considerable number of those protesters were mana-awakened.
Besides, could the leaders of this city—the city of artists—not know the artists' disposition?
Could they really not know that needlessly provoking them was no different from poking a hornet's nest?
That was impossible.
Tap.
On top of that, the army had been mobilized, and now, before even a day had passed, a soldier had refused an order and used violence.
Tap.
When the context before and after didn't fit, all one had to do was insert a keyword.
If I inserted a third keyword instead of just the city and the protesters...
"[Organization], huh."
The missing keyword. The strangely radical turn of events.
The entity benefiting most from the current situation.
It was exactly the kind of situation those bastards with their twisted belief that reducing the number of people on the continent would restore the broken cycle of mana would love most.
But.
"..."
Why now?
If they could create this kind of chaos, wouldn't they have acted long ago?
Or was the reason Marita had been half-destroyed for some reason Ariel mentioned before actually this disturbance?
"No, that can't be."
The words slipped out before I knew it.
This disturbance—this protest—would it half-destroy the city?
Well. No matter how mad the artists were or how many of them had awakened mana, half-destroying a city was by no means easy.
If this city could be ruined by a mere protest in the first place, it never could have earned the title City of Artists.
Considering the city's overall strength, this was a city that could never be destroyed for any ordinary reason.
Then why had this situation been created?
There was only one difference from Ariel's previous regression.
"Me."
Right. The fact that Bellias and I—the two of us—were here.
Fwoooosh.
The moment I had that thought, I instinctively exhaled cigar smoke toward the enormous museum standing in the center of this chaotic city.
Using my smoke, I began examining the situation at the Marita Museum.
"Ha."
Sharing the smoke's field of vision with one eye closed, I let out a hollow laugh at the suspiciously lax security around the museum.
"It's blatant."
Yes. It was blatant.
The defenses of the museum, which had boasted impregnable security, were leaving openings so obvious they might as well have been an invitation.
"A trap."
"Probably."
"Hmm..."
What should we do...
There were two options.
Do we fall into that blatant trap to obtain more certain information about the enemy?
Or.
Avoid the current situation and evade the enemy's aim?
"What do you think would be better?"
When I shared my thoughts, Bellias looked down at the city with a cool gaze and fell into thought.
Each option had its pros and cons.
The first option might be dangerous, but we would gain that much more information.
The second was safe, but it was obvious we would gain little information.
Whether to risk danger or take the safe path.
We stood at a fork between two roads.
"What do you think, Lord Abel?"
"Me?"
Perhaps because this was an official matter, she had returned to the extremely cool-headed demeanor she had shown before.
Looking at her, I opened my mouth with a faint smile at the corner of my lips.
"How about we give our answers at the same time? Risk danger, option 1; take the safe path, option 2."
"Understood."
"All right. Shall we begin?"
3... 2... 1.
"Option 1."
"Option 1."
Risk danger.
At the conclusion Bellias and I had reached simultaneously, I laughed as if I found it amusing and exhaled cigar smoke.
"Hahaha! Bellias, is there a reason you chose option 1?"
"The Nebla Ducal House is always taking risks."
What was the Nebla Ducal House's nickname?
The king of the underworld.
But would a ducal house like the Nebla family have maintained its current standing by always choosing the safe path?
If that had been the nature of their family to begin with, there was no way a bloody battle in which direct descendants killed one another would have occurred.
"If the information we could gain had been limited, I would have chosen option 2, but..."
"But you didn't?"
"No."
It was a simple weighing of the scales.
The situation was obviously a trap.
If so, couldn't Abel and Bellias break through that trap using the full strength of the two of them?
No, that wasn't it.
Abel, sitting before her eyes now, was a monster among monsters, acknowledged as such by the current head of the ducal house.
Besides, Bellias herself might put on airs, but she was by no means weak.
"A strong person who stays still isn't frightening."
Once you gained power, you had to wield it.
Otherwise, you couldn't inspire fear, and an enemy who didn't fear you was difficult to deal with.
"Hahaha!!"
Hearing Bellias say that, I couldn't hold back the laughter that burst out.
Right. Though I sometimes forgot, she too carried the blood of the Nebla Ducal House.
An ordinary person would choose safety, but she chose the more efficient option despite the risk.
She probably knew it well, too.
If the trap they had prepared proved effective, we were the ones who would be in danger.
But even taking that into account, we had judged that there was much to gain.
"All right."
If Bellias and I had reached the exact same conclusion, there was no reason to hesitate.
Thinking that, I rose from the rooftop railing where I had been sitting and looked out over the city plunged into chaos.
"Ah, but I do have one thought."
"What?"
Gazing down at the city's chaotic nightscape, I savored the aroma of my special cigar, which left behind a rich coffee fragrance, then turned around.
"Rather than staying together, let's split up and act according to our own judgment."
"Pardon?"
I said it playfully, but my true purpose lay elsewhere.
The person most suspicious in the current situation.
The one who had fanned this spark into a blaze.
"I'll leave Sara to you."
"..."
To be honest, nearly all the circumstances pointed to her.
Someone with the social standing to contact the city's leaders.
Moreover, a strange esper who could imbue her voice with mana.
She had definitely said this before, hadn't she?
'Hehehe. Because you weren't captivated by my voice.'
'Ah, yes. Perhaps because of the ability I awakened, everyone gets all woozy when they hear my voice.'
"What do you think? Suspicious, right?"
"Hmm... But it will be dangerous."
"Well, of course."
I lightly agreed with Bellias.
The main purpose of all this was likely to draw me into that museum or otherwise induce me to take action.
"But we stand to gain more this way, don't we?"
"...You really do carry the blood of the Nebla family."
Oh, come on. Why say something so hurtful?
To begin with, taking on risky work like this was something my past self had often done.
I told you, it has absolutely nothing to do with the Nebla Ducal House.
***
Marita Museum.
A place where countless masters of this city donated their finest works.
The Marita Museum's reputation was so high that they said merely having a work of art inside it was enough to establish an artist's worth.
And now.
Click.
A man appeared in the center of the museum.
"Hngh... Ngh..."
Sailor collapsed on the spot and desperately forced down the mana that was about to run wild.
Crackle.
A communication device attached near Sailor's ear.
[Ah. Can you hear me?]
It was the voice of an esper that sent a creepy sensation crawling over his entire body, as though bugs were crawling all over him just from hearing it.
"Khh. Shut up..."
[Good. Judging by the way you're talking, you still seem to be in your right mind.]
"..."
[I've got pretty good news, Abel.]
Flinch.
[It looks like Abel is heading straight to the museum.]
"Haha..."
[And that woman, Asra, doesn't seem to be anywhere in sight, so it looks like the two of them have split up.]
"Hahaha."
[Haa. It looks like he's coming my way, so I won't keep the communication open. See you.]
Hahahahaha!!!
[Go on, burn up that precious life of yours and see if you can at least wound that singularity.]
Click.
Sara's words cut off after she said that.
Shing.
Sailor immediately drew his sword and placed it across his own thigh.
He had to hone his body and mind as sharply as possible before Abel arrived here.