Father (1)
I had reached the conclusion that the NPC inside the ring was the real Haydam.
Of course, if someone asked how the long-dead Haydam had ended up sealed inside a gemstone set into a ring—and in the form of a cat, no less—I would have had no answer to give.
But the feeling… my instincts kept saying it.
That this little bastard was the genuine Haydam.
And yet.
He went back into the ring at that exact moment?
Instead of answering when I asked whether he was Haydam, he had simply vanished into the ring. After that, no amount of baiting drew any reaction out of him. Apparently he was under some restriction that forbade him from confirming it one way or the other.
I still didn’t know what his circumstances were, but having him be “Haydam” was still better than dealing with some completely unknown NPC. At least then his desire to protect the Commander wouldn’t be mixed up with any other agenda.
As long as I played the part of Haydam the way he wanted—as long as I didn’t make the Commander “sad”—he would keep cooperating with me.
…And for my own part, living as Haydam with the real one’s tacit consent would, I hoped, let me feel just a little less guilty about it.
Even so, if I start calling the ring “Haydam” out loud, anyone who hears it is going to get suspicious…
He himself refused to admit he was the real Haydam, and he hadn’t even given me another name I could use. So inventing a form of address myself should be fine.
After a brief moment of thought I spoke to the ring.
“From now on, your name is Luna.”
A cat living in Luna Moon’s ring. Luna. Seemed straightforward enough.
The ring gave a small, indignant shudder at my half-hearted naming.
…Why can’t this guy just say he’s Haydam?
Why did he need someone else to pretend to be him in the first place? Did he not want to appear in front of the Commander as a cat monster? What the hell had happened that left him sealed inside Luna Moon’s ring?
A hundred questions crowded my mind, but there were other things that needed immediate attention. Chief among them was the matter of Lieutenant General Max—whether he had truly ordered Bones’s death.
I was discharged not long after waking up. When they found me in the cave at the base of the cliff I hadn’t had a single injury, and every test they ran came back clean. The Commander clearly hated the idea of me leaving the hospital, but she couldn’t stop me once I’d made up my mind.
And the moment I was out, Meursault hit me with unexpected news.
“The Team Two leader committed suicide?”
According to Meursault, after the Team Two leader was pulled off the cliff and brought back to the Zone, he had been placed under detention. The very next day they found him dead.
“The official cause of death is still listed as suicide. For now.”
“For now?”
“There was a guard detail watching him at the time. For some reason they left their posts, and when they returned they reported finding him hanging.”
So Meursault was already entertaining the possibility that someone had staged the suicide. A reasonable suspicion.
“How far has the investigation gone?”
“With the Team Two leader conveniently suicided and his men’s bodies never recovered, all we have left is the testimony of Bones and Lucas… and those two refuse to open their mouths about what happened. After I spoke with the Commander, I understood why they’re keeping quiet.”
They’re terrified Max will be named as the culprit, so they clammed up.
But with only the two of them left alive from Team Two, silence was a pretty stupid strategy.
“Did you try persuading them?”
Meursault gave a small nod.
“They said they would talk once Lord Haydam woke up.”
Those bastards…
Ha. Actually, looking at it that way, maybe it was the smarter play. I was the one who had planted the hope that Max might not have ordered it. They weren’t complete idiots; they knew that blurting out “I don’t know if it’s true, but the Team Two leader said Max ordered it” would only make things worse for Max. They must have decided to wait until I was in a position to throw my weight behind the claim that Max might be innocent.
“Fine for those two. But you don’t seem like the type who just sat around waiting for me to wake up.”
“No, sir. At the time, Lord Haydam, you extracted a confession from the Team Two leader that Max had ordered the hit. Both the Commander and Second Lieutenant Platon testified to that, so Lieutenant General Max has also been detained.”
“And what does Max say?”
“He claims to know nothing about it. What do you think, sir?”
The fact that he was asking told me Meursault had already sensed something off about the whole affair.
“It isn’t Max. There’s nothing he gains by ordering something like this, and if the Team Two leader was planning to die anyway, he had no reason to confess.”
“The Commander seems to share that view… but that only makes things more complicated.”
“Because it means one of Father’s inner circle could be the real culprit?”
Meursault froze for a second, then asked in a low voice,
“You already… knew, then.”
Already knew.
Which meant Meursault himself also knew who the culprit was.
Which meant…
“Don’t tell me Father thinks the same thing I do?”
Instead of denying it, Meursault simply looked at me in silence.
These people…
They know who did it and they still haven’t punished him.
What had been only a guess hardened into certainty.
The one who had disguised the order as coming from Max and tried to have Bones killed was the head of the pro-Hayden faction himself—General Yosef.
“Seven soldiers died over this. If you’re hesitating for political reasons, I have to say I’m a little… disappointed.”
Meursault looked thoroughly flustered and hurried to explain.
“I-It isn’t like that! If we had hard evidence it would be different, but we can’t just start accusing our closest people without any proof. And the one who actually committed the murders was the Team Two leader—who is already dead. On top of that, both the Commander and Platon heard him confess under duress that Max had coerced him while he was begging for his life, so—”
“Meursault.”
I cut him off before he could talk himself blue in the face.
“Why do we need evidence?”
“…Sir?”
“Did we have evidence when we killed Lieutenant General Batom?”
“……!”
Meursault stared at me with a face that was half admiration, half pure shock.
“Lord Haydam… you really would make an excellent dictator…”
Is “excellent” even allowed to modify the word “dictator”? More importantly, so he was fully aware the Commander was a dictator. Good to know.
“But… handling it that way this time carries far too much risk. Batom was outside the fence. If you start dealing with people inside the fence the same way, no one will ever want to stay loyal to you again—even if the person in question really is guilty.”
“I’m not going to handle it myself.”
“Even if you order me to do it, the result is the same.”
Of course he assumes I’m going to dump it on him.
“Why do you think I’d ask you?”
“Then who, sir?”
“Anton.”
The name was so unexpected that Meursault couldn’t speak for a long moment.
“Are you serious? No—would he even agree to do that?”
“I’m going to go threaten him right now.”
Meursault’s expression went slack with defeat, then settled into resigned acceptance.
“…Anton is going to have a rough time of it in his later years.”
He was pitying Anton that much?
“I almost died going after those Team Two bastards myself, so I’m not letting this slide. Tell Father I’m handling this one myself.”
“You’re not going to tell him in person?”
“If I do, he’ll just say it’s too dangerous and forbid it. You know he will.”
“…….”
Suddenly Meursault was staring at me very hard.
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I was just wondering how a person can be this callous and cold-blooded.”
“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”
“Haa…”
Meursault let out a long breath, his lips trembling. I had never seen that expression on his face before, so I just blinked at him. He continued,
“Lord Haydam… I may not be your real father, but ever since you appeared at the Commander’s residence I’ve watched over you more closely than even your own father has. Of course I worry when you say you’re going out to hunt. Of course I regret that it wasn’t me who took the bullet when you get shot. And when I heard you’d fallen off a cliff and gone missing, I was out of my mind with fear that something had gone wrong. You say the Commander would obviously forbid anything dangerous? Do you think I wouldn’t?”
“Meur—Meursault…”
“But you were never going to listen to me or the Commander anyway, were you? After a full week unconscious, the first thing you ask when you come find me is what happened to the Team Two leader…!!”
Apparently Meursault had been holding onto a serious amount of hurt.
Everything I knew about him came from the game, so I had always thought of the sociopathic Meursault—who cared about nothing but Daphne—as someone who saw me only as a useful ally who could help with her divorce. I had played the understanding “family” card myself, yet it never occurred to me that he might actually see me as family in return.
My parents had given me plenty of grief over the years, but I had never given them any. Right now I felt like a thoroughly unfilial son.
The Commander had chewed me out when I first woke up in the hospital, but somehow this felt different.
“…I’m sorry, Meursault.”
“I didn’t bring this up just to hear an apology.”
“I can’t promise I’ll never do anything dangerous again. Sorry about that too.”
“Is that supposed to be an apology?”
Meursault glared at me, but after I kept apologizing his mood seemed to improve a little.
“So what exactly are you planning to threaten Anton with?”
He changed the subject so abruptly I could tell he was embarrassed about how emotional he’d gotten. I decided to be magnanimous and pretend not to notice.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be pure blackmail… we could always make a deal.”
“Blackmail or deal, I still can’t see Anton committing murder for you, Lord Haydam.”
“I’m not asking him to commit murder.”
Meursault looked puzzled.
“Then what?”
“Anton’s job is to give them certainty.”
“Certainty about what?”
“Certainty that Max is not the culprit. Certainty that Yosef is.”
Meursault’s face grew more and more confused.
“You said we didn’t need evidence. Why do we need certainty?”
“I don’t personally care which of the two is guilty. But there are people who do.”
“Ah… the newly commissioned officers.”
Exactly.
The certainty wasn’t for me. People as seasoned in politics as me, the Commander, and Meursault already knew Yosef had to be involved—Max had gained absolutely nothing from this whole mess. But Bones and Lucas didn’t know that. Bones especially would spend the rest of his life wondering whether Max had really abandoned him if we didn’t give him absolute certainty.
In front of everyone, we needed to make it clear that Max had never abandoned Bones.
“But… why do we need certainty that Yosef is the culprit?”
“Because otherwise it’ll feel incomplete when he dies.”
“You said you weren’t going to have anyone murder him.”
“Yep.”
“And you aren’t going to kill him yourself either.”
“Obviously not.”
“Then how exactly do you plan to kill Yosef?”
“Sinners have a way of inviting divine punishment.”
“I’m sorry?”
I pointed at the sky.
“You never know… a lightning bolt might just happen to strike him right on the head.”
A player who was still clumsy with his supernatural ability might accidentally drop a bolt of lightning right on top of the bastard, after all.