12 O'Clock, Twelve Nations (2)
Fermi didn't give up.
"It's not too late."
There are few regrets in life that are truly too late to fix.
While racing through the Kesia Sector, he had encountered fewer than three people.
They were most likely all bowing to the Angels.
As time stretched the faster he pushed his speed, Fermi's mind ran through countless thoughts.
He had Kesia's support.
King Manolka had accepted without question even the mad idea of producing drugs.
That was clearly not a rational decision—it was blind trust in Fermi.
"Tch!"
Less than a second later Fermi opened Manolka's door.
"Old man..."
He stopped at the threshold; his gaze fixed on the old man sitting at the desk.
Had he been fooled before by the sight of someone gaunt as a corpse merely sleeping?
But with his head bowed and blood dripping away, that couldn't be an illusion.
Pushing down the thought that he was too late, Fermi stepped toward Manolka.
As he reached for the man's shoulder, Manolka flinched and lifted his head.
"Huurrk!"
Fermi's eyes widened.
"Your Majesty!"
The first thing he did on confirming Manolka was alive was cast a healing spell. Warm light spread through the room, and the king's pained expression slowly eased.
"Don't make a fuss. I only nodded off for a bit."
"I'll fetch help. I have a doctor friend."
If he asked Seriel, they could get assistance from the World Health Organization.
Manolka shook his head.
"Don't you know? This isn't a bodily disease. It's a sickness of the mind. It's irreversible."
Just as Fermi was about to speak, Manolka spat another mouthful of blood.
What the hell was this?
He couldn't see it, but the chill of the Otherworld seeped into his bones.
"Fermi."
Manolka laughed.
"We had some good times. I suppose it's my turn to go now. That's the natural order."
"Don't talk rubbish. This is an assassination."
"Do what you intend. Don't let emotion sway you. That's not like you."
"What do you think I am? An emotionless machine? The drug king who poisoned the world?"
"A capable man."
Fermi fell silent.
"Yeah, you're not a good man. But after living as long as I have, even a rascal starts to look endearing."
Faced with the dimming light in Manolka's eyes, Fermi gave up the argument.
"We have to climb to the very top of the world."
"The top, huh..."
As if he could actually see it, Manolka stared dreamily at the ceiling.
"I'm glad you're here."
With those words, Manolka's eyes fluttered shut and the last breath left his lungs.
The King of Kesia was dead.
Alone in the quiet room where no one else had entered, Fermi backed away slowly.
"Time was too tight."
He had failed to respond immediately to the Parath Kingdom's attack, to the world's shift in Law.
"Shirone was late. If I'd stayed in the Apocalypse... would the mining have gone faster?"
"We're short-handed. From planning to design it was all on me. Everyone has been high on drugs..."
"But it did curb the Satanist Church's expansion."
"Use the Angels properly. I told them to rotate patrols every two hours. Why were they so stupid..."
Fermi stopped his thoughts.
"Enough."
He mustn't blame anything but himself.
"Get a grip, Fermi."
Stop whining, you bastard.
"It wasn't that I couldn't. If I'd given up sleep entirely, I could've run the patrols."
He berated himself for thinking that keeping forty minutes of sleep a day to sustain brain function had been efficient.
"It was a judgment error. It shouldn't have happened. I'm incompetent. I should've split my time more—gathered information, sorted it, managed personnel, kept track of the situation..."
Done with self-criticism, Fermi pressed an imaginary revolver to his temple.
"Pull."
Click, click, click—each squeeze of the trigger cooled his anger.
"Think."
Because we're primates.
"What I can and cannot do. Of what I can do, what must be done first? Grasp the immediate problems and solve them one by one..."
He got so angry his head spun.
"Ah, damn."
Fermi took out a cigarette, lit it, and exhaled a long plume of smoke as he muttered.
A filthy curse.
In a dark alley of Jaive's capital, the midnight bell tolled.
"Hmm. Shirone, huh..."
Gustav IV had heard how the Wizard had managed to come this far.
From the Wizard's perspective, there was nothing to lose by accepting their help.
"Kill Habitz."
When focused, the Wizard was colder and calmer than any mage.
Natasha thought, He doesn't feel like a child. If that kid grows up, will he be this kind of mage?
Even without being told, she could guess the price the Wizard had paid to forge that state of mind.
Balkan said, "Now I understand. The moment Satan harbors hatred, he flees beyond the Law. Therefore, to kill Habitz, the killing must be done without killing intent."
Even if the had failed, the Wizard was different.
"Shirone created a that can think. That's you. But you lost to Satan, so you can no longer face Habitz in a pure state."
"That's right."
That was why the Wizard couldn't use force directly.
"With the smallest bit of logical thought, Habitz slips out of my cognition. You still can't read the voice of my heart, can you? The initial strategy needs revision."
Balkan propped his chin on his hand.
"Hmm. A way to pierce a Vanishing. I have one, too, though..."
At that moment the Wizard activated Musangshin.
Before Gustav IV could react, she fixed her gaze forward and shouted, "Dodge!"
The air around them felt as if it dropped below freezing the instant Balkan looked back.
He didn't know what it was.
But the Wizard, tuned to hyperempathy, sensed a chill that seemed to freeze the joints.
An emotion beyond imagination.
A scream red as blood, an anger that smelled of rot, hearts torn to shards.
"Ughk!"
Blood gushed from Balkan's mouth and Zetaro's face went white.
The massive body honed by Schema collapsed with a thud like a tree struck by an axe.
"Balkan!"
Natasha glared at the Wizard, searching for an explanation.
"What is it?"
"I don't know. Some presence—not of the living world, but not of the afterlife either... a horrible despair hanging on the border."
"Gak! Gak!"
With Zetaro's emergency resuscitation, Balkan drew ragged breaths and began to come to.
"Uuugh!"
But his already-battered body was rapidly failing.
"It's fine. You're okay now."
Balkan pushed Zetaro's hand away, but Zetaro gripped his wrist and checked his pulse again.
"Stay still. This is..."
Zetaro tilted his head as if listening for a pulse with his ear; his expression slowly crumpled.
"Damn it."
Balkan was tough enough to hold on for a while, but an ordinary person would have died at once.
Balkan felt it, too.
"Something... attacked me."
When Natasha showed a killing intent and glared at the Wizard, Balkan raised a hand.
"No, it's not that. That child has nothing to gain by killing me."
"Then who?"
"Someone from another country, probably. There's no reason to eliminate me other than me being Emperor Gustav. Something penetrated me—an extreme rage..."
Balkan spat blood again.
"It's a sort of influence. If long, maybe a month; if short, a week or two at most."
"Habitz?" Natasha asked. There was no reason to be sorrowful.
"If it's that kind of attack, Habitz would know. But that isn't the important part."
Spitting blood onto the floor, Balkan looked up at the Wizard.
"If you agree to join us, there's a way to kill Habitz."
The Wizard asked calmly, "What method?"
"A game."
Balkan's eyes hardened.
"A way to kill without killing intent. Build a system that does it. It's a kind of game. The question is whether Habitz will be interested—but with you, that won't be a problem."
He was certain.
"Habitz didn't kill the Wizard. This isn't chaos. It's clearly both emotional and logical."
If that's the case, they could stab at him.
"Understood."
The Wizard said, "Approach it as a system, not as emotion. It will work if it ends as a game. But this isn't a game. We have to actually kill Habitz."
Cutting the last breath isn't a game, so it will inevitably be emotional.
"Don't worry."
Balkan turned to Zetaro. "We have a game expert on our side. We can definitely take Habitz down."
Because Habitz seeks only pleasure, paradoxically that could be his undoing.
"The moment we drive Habitz to the brink of death, we'll surely face Vanishing. But Zetaro can handle it. Right?" Zetaro only looked sad.
"And I..."
Balkan split his lips into a grin.
"I've never lost a game."
"Are you sane?"
Uorin's face twisted in disbelief at Habitz's terms.
"You're really going to do that?"
"It doesn't matter. The flesh has already been pierced—by the strongest blow. By tomorrow, the holy war will be overturned."
Habitz watched Uorin's expression harden.
"What's so serious? This is what you wanted. If you can't control it, wreck it. Then the initiative will swing back to you."
It was true.
And once Satan had made the request, the catastrophe had been ominously foreshadowed.
No—it's far more logical than I'd expected. Even rational, Habitz thought. It could even benefit Kashan; there's nothing to lose.
Uorin hesitated mainly because it involved Shirone.
Habitz said, "Don't worry. It's just a game. A very fun game. I have other things I want to do."
The Wizard whom Shirone loved.
"I want to see her again."
Even while talking with Uorin, Habitz couldn't forget her for a single moment.
"I have to meet the Wizard... yes, at least meet her. And... hm?"
Suddenly he realized.
"What is it that I... want to do with her?"