Karma Chain (2)
Is this what it feels like to become a bomb?
As energy that wasn't his surged exponentially, Rian ground his teeth.
"Ughhh!"
Only when hot smoke spat from between his teeth did he realize he couldn't hold on.
Regardless of pressure, demonic energy was flooding into him through Gehenna's chain.
"Argh!" Rian threw his chest wide open and vented the maddening pressure outward.
Krrrrrrr!
Hot steam spun around him and billowed along the ground.
"Hah! Hah!"
He panted roughly, but didn't feel particularly exhausted.
Shirone's voice reached him.
"Gehenna."
When Rian slowly lifted his head, Shirone was walking toward him beyond the horizon.
"Shirone, what is this?"
"An ever-burning fire. They call it Hellfire. In truth, it's a phenomenon that can't occur in a living body."
Shirone looked around as he spoke.
"Normally, someone burned by Hellfire becomes a source of demonic energy. But you kept regenerating endlessly in reality. So you turned into a living Hellfire—Gehenna."
"Do I have to carry this forever?"
"Even if you fell into hell, your mind would remain tied to reality. Because you're a living body. That's called karma. The chain bound to your heart represents lingering attachments left in the world. If you purify that karma, the chain will vanish, but—"
"Then I die."
Shirone nodded.
"Yes. Complete annihilation. Your body is already gone; your soul would evaporate too."
"I understand. But how do you purify it?"
"Hmm…according to my memory—"
Shirone recalled Omega's records.
"The otherworld is the realm of emotion, so I don't know the exact mechanics. I only experienced it indirectly by tracking atomic motion—the record of a living body. When Gehenna met Lucifer, a voice rang out from the sky."
"The sky?"
Rian, staring up at the flame-choked heavens, shouted.
"Hey! Say something!"
Kuuuuuuu!
The sky answered with nothing but roaring flames.
When the signal light turned red, the Informator wrung her hands in a panic.
"What do we do? What do we do?"
Normally at least one Informator was assigned to a purification subject.
There was no shortage of labor in the world—most had little to do.
"He actually severed the Karma Chain himself." As far as she knew, that was impossible—especially for Gehenna, born of Hellfire.
Beep! Beep!
The buzzer screamed every time Rian cried out, but no one dared respond.
"We have to give a purification time…"
Time in the photon realm is used in the otherworld as a measure of emotional magnitude.
In other words, the greater the pain, the faster time moves; the milder the pain, the slower it flows.
"But why—?"
Why couldn't it be measured?
The signal rising from the blood in the hemispherical bowl read: UNMEASURABLE.
It was the first time in their lives. They hadn't even known such a signal could appear.
"Boss!"
Unable to ignore the red light any longer, the Informator hurried off to find Lete.
"What is it?" Lete raised an eyebrow.
"It says 'unmeasurable.' No being should produce such a signal."
"It really did," the Informator insisted, face full of grievance. Lete propped an elbow on her desk and pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Chains of Gehenna…"
Although the Fire Resource Management Corporation received ore from hell, it was an independent organization.
A group faithful to the otherworld's original purpose, their mission was purifying demonic energy.
"Odd case, huh?"
It was a flat response, but there was no other explanation.
"Even Satan can't contradict Gehenna. He was born of Hellfire too. It's basically a system error."
"So what do we do? We can't honestly tell them it's unmeasurable. The signal keeps blaring—"
"Don't panic. It's a simple error. The Karma Chain binds the purification subject to hell in some fashion. It must've been temporarily severed. It'll reconnect."
"What if it cuts again? A living body roaming free is dangerous. They could come to the Fire Corp." Lete's eyes went hollow as she motioned toward the door.
"Monoras, come in."
She waited ten seconds, but no footsteps came down the corridor.
Sighing deeply, she hesitated, then forced an excited little sound from her lips.
"Ah—ah—"
Bang—the door burst open.
"Boss! What's—!"
Monoras stepped in, eyes wide, and saw nothing like she'd expected.
The Informator glanced back, and Lete stared coldly from behind her desk.
A long silence stretched.
"Hmm."
Monoras smacked her lips, then wordlessly turned and headed for the door.
"Hey!"
Lete slammed the desk and stood.
"I called you! For God's sake, do your job! Every time I see you I age by thousands of years!"
Monoras shrugged and replied nonchalantly.
"What is it?"
Lete had known since the early days of the otherworld's founding that scolding was pointless.
"Go on a business trip. There's a problem with the purification system; we need an expert. The mage-engineering city, Laviet. Tell the duke to come here."
Monoras started to leave without even answering. Lete quickly added,
"No bribes. Understood?"
"Yes."
"No hospitality. Don't beat demons, don't harass residents, don't abuse power—no, never mind."
Lete waved a hand.
"Do whatever you want. Just do the job properly. Don't get sidetracked. Okay?"
"Don't worry. Who do you think I am?"
Who are you?
Monoras turned in the doorway, flashed a charming smile, and winked.
"I'm Monoras, Chief Secretary of the Fire Resource Management Corporation."
Lete slumped into her chair, mouth agape.
"…I'm really going to lose my mind." Much later, well past noon, Shirone and Amy arrived in the southern reaches of the Kingdom of Tormia.
The demon damage here hadn't been severe, but the aftereffects of emotion sickness had spread this far.
Amid screams from house to house, Amy pointed toward the noble district.
"If I remember right, that's the building."
It was massive, comparable even to the Carmis family's mansion.
Shirone checked the nameplate carved with the surname Cross.
"Kaiden."
Amy nodded.
"He should be at the main house. I checked whether he'd enlisted in a Valkyrie unit, but he hasn't."
"You still like Maya?"
"That's probably why he's holed up. If he loved her that much, he should've confessed. It's maddening."
"But Kaiden—"
"Yes. He was born under the fate of the Red Cross Star. What one truly desires is never granted, but everything else can reach its full potential. Back then I thought it was nonsense… Now that I've approached the world's truth, I understand Kaiden's feelings completely."
"A destiny that reaches the extreme of the Law by giving up the heart. That's probably how the Red Cross Star works."
"That's why I asked you. Miracle Stream might have some way. If Kaiden joins, he'd be a huge asset to humanity."
Shirone had no objections.
"All right. Let's go in."
They knocked, but neither guards nor butlers came out. As one of the kingdom's foremost families, they likely controlled emotion sickness well—but it still looked dire.
"Who is it?"
Just as they considered scaling the wall, a man in a formal uniform walked up from the garden.
It was Kaiden's father.
"Hello. I'm Amy—Amy Carmis."
Kaiden's father, who had been watching her, brightened at the sight of Shirone instead.
"Yahweh, is it?"
"Hello. We'd like to see Kaiden."
The door opened and Kaiden's father, hands clasped behind his back, led them into the mansion.
"I figured someone would come. If my son isn't completely foolish. Come in."
The mansion was cold; the air itself felt frigid.
It couldn't be blamed solely on emotion sickness—the chill felt ancient.
"It's been a long time since he spoke. Pishor, was it? Since the funeral, he hasn't come up from the cellar."
The father knocked on the iron door.
"Kaiden, friends have come." There was no reply. He sighed as he climbed the stairs.
"From here on it's up to you. He could even be dead. It's a pity. A genius of the family…"
A sense of loss—that he'd been unable to do anything until the world's destruction—tinted his voice.
When the father stepped aside, Shirone exchanged a look with Amy and knocked again.
"Kaiden, it's Shirone. Amy's here too. Can we talk for a bit?"
"Go back."
The voice was barely audible unless one pressed an ear to the door, but it was definitely Kaiden's.
"We'll be quick. We need to talk about Maya," Amy said.
They offered that bait, but five minutes passed with no answer.
"Shirone, open it."
Amy pointed at the doorknob.
"You can open it, right? Do it."
"Force doesn't help persuasion. If Kaiden doesn't want—"
"He didn't even react when you said Maya's name. If he's trapped inside, it doesn't matter who goes in. Someone has to get in and pull him out."
She had a point, so Shirone cast Miracle Stream on the doorknob.
Quietly, the lock clicked open and the rapid scratch of pen on paper rang out from within.
"No, that's not it!"
In the dim light, Kaiden sat at his desk drawing beneath a single lamp.
"…My God."
Amy got the chills when she saw the room plastered with images of Maya.
"This isn't it!" Kaiden hurled the paper he'd been working on to the floor and grabbed another.
At first Shirone thought he'd failed, but when he stepped closer he saw a perfect portrait of Maya.
'His technique is bizarre. How—'
Shirone stopped the thought and studied Kaiden.
"Huh. Huhhh."
Could that even be called drawing?
Kaiden was simply dragging a pen left to right at incredible speed.
"Just straight lines." Yet as those lines accumulated, a perfect recessed likeness emerged.
"No! This isn't it!"
Kaiden threw the paper away again, then took a pen in each hand.
With both hands moving simultaneously, torrents of lines produced yet another new Maya.
"Damn it! Why! Why!"
He tossed the finished drawing to the floor, clutched his head, and wept.
"Why can't I draw Maya?"
Shirone watched him with sorrowful eyes.
'There's no technical problem. He's already surpassed human limits. But—'
In Kaiden's eyes it wouldn't be Maya.
'Because he loves her.'
No picture could capture the essence of the woman he loved.
"Kaiden."
Shirone put a hand on Kaiden's shoulder.
"Go to Maya. She's in danger now. She might even be dead."
"…I can't."
Kaiden said with a look of despair.
"I can't draw Maya. If I can't draw her, I can't protect her. I'm no use."
Amy finally understood why Kaiden had been furiously drawing.
"Maya is right now—"
Shirone, who usually withheld information on simultaneous incidents, made an exception this time.
"She's in the same bad state as you."
For the first time, Kaiden's gaze turned to Shirone.