[685] Offering Flowers (5)
The kinetic power of the high-velocity armor-piercing rounds was enormous—pure motion energy enough to punch through the steel plating of an ancient war machine—but Lupist felt uneasy.
The living flower had to be delivered to the kingdom intact.
"No response."
There was nothing to sense inside the iron barrier riddled like a honeycomb.
"He opened the floor and escaped."
As Lupist had predicted, a different section of the floor opened and Plarino reappeared.
"I'll show you exactly what your arrogance has brought."
The floor beneath Lupist rippled like water, formed a massive sphere, and trapped him.
"You've got to be kidding."
A steel prison for the steel mage.
As he prepared to smash his way out, he felt an inertia pulling him down with a force stronger than gravity.
"So this is the strategy."
It was the power of the Small-World Changyu—an ability that dominated systems and even matter.
Like molten metal flowing into holes, the iron sphere kept falling through the perforations until it finally thudded onto the floor.
"Take cover!"
When the ceiling abruptly opened and the sphere dropped, Shirone flung himself, clutching Meirei to shield her.
Kido, already some distance away, blinked and stared. The orb popped open, and Lupist emerged.
"It's blocked."
He clicked his tongue after checking the ceiling.
"You're getting on my nerves."
That irritation turned on Shirone, who was still lingering below.
"What were you doing? I told you to control the main system. Where's Jane?"
"This is the control room."
Shirone, who had already arrived, pointed to the console with a sad look.
"When we got here, she was already—"
Lupist, not understanding Shirone's unfinished words, frowned and turned his head. Then he smiled as he found Jane's corpse.
He'd always been unemotional, but now he seemed utterly inhuman.
"Jane."
Her belly had been opened, and the muscles of both wrists were completely torn.
There was no doubt she was dead, but Lupist still stepped closer.
Shirone followed and spoke in a mournful voice.
"It looks like she went into cardiac arrest and someone forced her heart to beat. That's why the wrist muscles—"
"I know."
Lupist knelt and examined Jane's hands.
"When did it happen?"
Armand relayed the data to Shirone.
"One minute thirty-two seconds ago."
"They took the Nemesis."
They wouldn't have stored it in a Cubric.
They'd cut off the finger and taken it.
Shirone's eyes widened.
"Could it be—Shagal?"
If it was someone tied to the aftermath of the Great Purge, Ra Enemi's design would have let them infiltrate the living flower.
"Extending life by transcending the mind was clever, but the final handling was sloppy. They should have destroyed her properly."
Shirone frowned.
"Is this really the time to say that? Jane did her best."
"So what do you want me to do? Pat the corpse and tell it 'good job'?"
"Association President—"
Anger crept into Shirone's voice, but Lupist coldly turned away from Jane and pivoted.
"She'll be given an official death. If she'd been alive I might have slapped her. Even as one of the Spectrum's three directors, she isn't someone who dies easily. It all comes down to sentiment. This is why you can't trust women."
"Don't speak recklessly about things you don't understand."
"I understand."
He knew her better than her parents did.
"Go. Head to the upper seed chamber and steal the living flower's seed. Plarino controls it now, but with the Ultima system that won't be a problem."
"But—"
"There isn't time."
Because Lupist sounded certain, Shirone gave up arguing and turned away.
"Let's go, Meirei, Kido."
Leaving the control room, Shirone let his outrage loose.
"He's cold-blooded. No blood, no tears."
Kido, running up beside her, said, "That's not true, Shirone."
"We've worked together for over ten years. And he speaks of her like that? I could never do that."
"Didn't you notice?"
Shirone looked at Kido, puzzled.
"Huh? Notice what?"
"That man—the Association President—has been staring at the corpse."
Kido kept his gaze on Lupist.
"He hasn't blinked once since then."
"Blink?"
Kido mimed stabbing his own eyes.
"That's not natural. I don't know what he's thinking, but it doesn't seem unconscious."
Shirone kept his eyes on the floor as they ran, and Meirei said, "Either way, stay alert. Jane's death is bad enough, but Ra Enemi's silence worries me."
Kido scrunched his nose.
"They're hiding. Not even a breath. You need scent. Nothing beats it for tracking."
"But scent is Shagal's specialty. Can we persuade him?"
"No need to persuade."
Shirone said, "If they took the Nemesis, it already means what's going to happen."
"..."
They felt like puppets caught on the threads of fate.
Meanwhile, Lupist left the control room in the opposite direction.
When the automatic doors opened and he stepped into the corridor, Plarino stood by the stairs.
"How does it feel to lose someone precious?"
Lupist sensed a foreign pressure at his back.
Black smoke crawled up, and the pureblood vampire Laika blocked his path.
"I entered a primal code and tried to reclaim the living flower. The plan was good. The attempt was good. But I suppose you didn't expect the gap in ability."
When Lupist finally looked back, his eyes were bloodshot though unclosed.
Laika, as if delighted, smiled and raised a hand.
"I finished it with my own hands. Not perfectly, but enough. Now that the result is like this, I think it's for the best. They must have died in the worst pain."
Lupist felt no disgust.
Not for that.
"If you fear pain, you wouldn't do such a stupid thing."
"Heh. So you are human after all. You talk big, but your voice trembles. Was she that important to you?"
Plarino said, "You failed. Control of the living flower has returned to me, and soon the palace will be destroyed."
Lupist exhaled.
"No. I don't care about that anymore."
The two triarchs exchanged puzzled looks—they knew how strict the head of Tormia's Magic Association could be.
"Oh, you're angry? So you really are human."
That wasn't sympathy.
Plarino wanted Lupist to taste the same feeling and crumble under the same frustration.
"Don't be mistaken. That woman meant nothing to me. She was an aide, a chief secretary. Eccentric, yes, but she's dead now—there's nothing to think about."
The air grew heavy, metallic as if charged with iron; Laika and Plarino's faces hardened.
"She was competent."
She'd been skilled enough to make a hardliner like Lupist into the head of the Magic Association.
"That's what pisses me off. That capable woman—the sort of talent that rarely fails to pay back whatever you invest in training—wasted on the lives of demi-human vermin. That enrages me."
Beyond a feeling, iron seemed to leach into the air.
"How will you make up for it? The countless problems she had to solve alive—none of you could handle them even if you died a hundred times."
"How dare you belittle vampires!"
Laika dissolved into smoke and charged, and Plarino moved iron walls from every direction to press the attack.
"—Armor-Piercing Wave."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than the air around Lupist rippled and sheets of iron wall began to spread.
"Grrrr!"
Laika burst through with her half-spirit ability, but second and third iron walls formed and pushed her back.
"Ugh!"
Plarino, fused with the living flower, crouched and shouted.
"You'll snap it? It's probably precious to you too, right?"
"Of course."
The ancient war machines were worth more than half the kingdom's strength.
"You should've kept your antics in check."
The iron-wave pulses intensified and began to extend outward toward the living flower's outer wall.
"You'll regret this! You—"
A cold smile creased Lupist's mouth.
"What wouldn't I regret?"
Kugugugugugung!
As the living flower's vibration—growing toward the sun—escalated far beyond before, Shirone's group halted.
"What's happening?"
Kido grabbed the wall. "It's tilting! Is it trying to block us?"
"No—this isn't that level."
The tilt exceeded twenty degrees.
Considering the living flower's height and mass, returning it to its original position was nearly impossible.
—There's no time.
Shirone recalled Lupist's words and a realization hit him.
"I see."
His earlier remark hadn't been about striking the capital.
"He's trying to snap it."
"Snap it? We haven't even got the seed yet. Isn't that important to the kingdom?"
"You were right, Kido."
When had Lupist lost his reason? Perhaps the moment they found Jane's body.
"He'd already lost it, Lupist had."
The 47th Armor-Piercing Wave dented internal structures and spread across more than half the trunk's diameter.
Ancient machines were tougher than steel, and waves that couldn't overcome resistance vanished, but the 48th, 49th, 50th waves kept coming without end.
"Pathetic humans!"
Laika, having pierced eighty-seven waves, clung to Lupist's shoulder and bared her teeth.
'Just one bite!'
She could make the head of the Magic Association her puppet.
"Bats and the like."
For the first time in his life, Lupist drew on magic to a level even his society frowned upon.
Steel Magic—Adamantine Tide.
An iron wave pulsing ten times per second rolled outward, sweeping aside half-spirit bodies.
"Kraaaaah!"
"Stop! What kind of cultivated flower is this? Are you insane?"
Plarino's voice echoed through every speaker in the living flower.
'He lost his mind? Not at all.'
That wasn't their style.
'Right, Jane?'
The strategic value if the living flower were handed intact to the kingdom, the astronomical price of its seeds, the countless potential profits that would follow—
'I'll cover all of it.'
He would grow so strong—far beyond any ancient war machine—that he could reverse all those losses.
'I'll fight even for your share.'
Lupist never closed his eyes.
'So rest easy, Jane.'
At last the 362nd iron wall reached the living flower's outer shell, and Lupist unlocked the greatest power of his life.
'This is—'
The Armor-Piercing Wave blasted through the outer wall and sprang out, completely severing the living flower's base.
'I dedicate this flower to your grave.'
"Kyaaaaa!"
Plarino's scream seemed to perfectly mirror the voiceless agony of the living flower.
"It's falling! He really did it!"
Kido ran across the tilting wall; Shirone and Meirei floated as if weightless, searching for an exit.
"Get out that way! If you get swept up, it's over!"
It would be like the impact of falling from space.
"I can't fly!"
"I'll catch you! Just jump!"
After Shirone and Meirei escaped, Kido grimaced and leaped.
"They're a mad species, honestly!"
Kugugugugugugug!
Etella felt the ground tremble and lifted her rain-soaked face.
A six-hundred-meter-tall—the most expensive flower in the world—was toppling toward the south of Radum.
"Humans are… human."
From a human perspective, beings that pursue human happiness.
A broken flower wilts, but that flower is placed before someone's grave to mourn a death—
We would even call that beautiful.