The Script (Part 3)
"Emily, do you mind taking a seat for a second?"
"Yes, Oppa."
I didn't lose my temper right off the bat. It wasn't as if Emily was malicious; she simply had an appalling lack of common sense. It was one of the two defining traits shared by everyone affiliated with Ex Machina. Still, she wasn't particularly selfish, which was a tremendous relief in itself. The tradeoff, of course, was having virtually zero grasp of social norms...
"Did you happen to attach some kind of surveillance device to me?"
"A surveillance device?"
"Something like this."
I pointed at the spider-shaped mechanical contraption resting on the desk. Knowing her, she might not even realize that planting bugs on people counted as surveillance.
"Yes."
"Just how many are there?"
"Hold on a moment."
Rummaging through her satchel, Emily pulled out a controller—too bulky to be a simple remote, yet too compact to pass for a keyboard—and tapped a quick sequence into it. Immediately, identical mechanical spiders began scuttling out from every crack and crevice across the room.
"..."
At a cursory glance, there were well over thirty. It boggled the mind how she had managed to tuck so many around me without my noticing. How on earth had she slipped them past Yuna's senses, too? Was it because they were inanimate constructs rather than living assassins?
"Emily, I'd really appreciate it if you stopped doing this. Even I have a right to privacy, you know? You understand that, right?"
"Privacy?"
"Yeah."
"..."
Emily tilted her head slowly to one side. Come on, you can't be that far gone. You know what the word means, don't you?
"Does that mean you have secrets you want to keep?"
"Right, exactly that. See? You get it."
"Even though you already know I belong to Ex Machina, Oppa?"
"...Don't you think those are two completely different things?"
If one were forced to weigh my personal privacy against her true allegiance, hers was undeniably the heavier secret. But how should I put it? Sifting through someone's daily life with wiretaps wasn't quite the same as deducing an identity through observation, was it? How was I even supposed to explain this? Trying to articulate something that should have been blindingly obvious only tied my tongue in knots.
"Emily."
"Yes?"
"Listen closely. This is something I really dislike."
"Why is that?"
The fact that she felt the need to ask why I disliked being spied on was alarming all on its own. A dull ache began throbbing behind my temples.
"Anyway, just take my word for it. Go back to Stan and ask him why doing things people hate is wrong."
"Okay."
"Good."
Domestic education was best left to actual family. It wasn't my place to lecture her, and Stan despises the thought of me getting entangled with his sister anyway, so he'd undoubtedly give her a thorough lecture.
"Now take this one and head home."
"Ah, right. Since Lord Deus used it, it broke down."
"Take the rest with you, too."
"The rest are fine, though? They aren't broken."
"Just take them anyway..."
"Okay."
I watched her petite frame bow politely and slip out of the workshop, an involuntary sigh escaping my lips.
"Stan, man... you really have it rough."
Seriously... being part of the protagonist's party wasn't a job for the faint of heart. Just what kind of everyday struggle had that guy been enduring?
The moment Emily returned to the Robinhood estate, she went looking for Stan.
"Emily? Were you out?"
"Yeah. I went to see Yohan Oppa."
"..."
The instant Yohan's name left her lips, Stan's face soured into open disgust. He knew Yohan wasn't an outright villain, but he found the man utterly repulsive regardless. At the very least, the bastard was a certified degenerate—or so Stan firmly believed.
"It seems I did something Yohan Oppa dislikes."
"What?"
"And he told me to ask you why I shouldn't do things people dislike."
"What kind of utter..."
Instinctive spite flared within Stan's chest. Though relatively mature for his years, he was still far from a full-fledged adult. Before even hearing the context, pure contrarian resentment hijacked his judgment. Hearing that it was something Yohan hated only made him scoff.
"No, you can do whatever the hell you want to that bastard. Do every single thing you feel like doing."
"Really?"
"Yeah. In fact, if he ever gives you grief over it again, tell me right away. I won't let him get away with it."
"Okay, got it."
At Stan's grand declaration, Emily nodded placidly and murmured under her breath.
"So I'm allowed to do whatever I want."
It was a conclusion that neither Yohan nor Stan would ever have wished for.
By the time Emily had departed and Yuna strolled back in, I brought her up to speed on what had transpired in her absence.
"I see."
"Oh, right. Be careful yourself, Yuna. From the way she talked, Emily might have stuck a few on you, too."
"Hm? She did."
"Huh?"
"Yep."
"You knew?"
"Of course."
"Then what about the ones crawling all over me?!"
"I knew about those, too."
"Then why didn't you tell me?!"
"Because I didn't think it was a big deal? I mean, I do that much myself... Er, no, I mean, it was just a cute mistake, so let's let it slide."
"What did you just say...?"
"Who, me? Did I say something?"
Come to think of it, Yuna had always been hovering somewhere in my blind spots. To the point where if I casually called her name into the empty air, she'd pop out from nowhere like an overenthusiastic phantom. From now on, I needed to lock my bedroom door whenever I was alone. Not that a locked door would stop an assassin of her caliber, but still...
"At any rate, that's where things stand, so we're heading out immediately. Get ready."
"Ooh, a night date?"
"What date? We're going to work."
"Then why should I tag along for your personal errands, Yohan?"
"..."
"Do I look like a pushover idiot to you?"
"...Yuna, would you do me the honor of going on a date?"
"Let's go!"
This isn't cheating. It's just essential client hospitality.
...No matter how I tried to spin it, I still sounded like absolute scum, didn't I? Whatever. It wasn't like I had any real say in the matter anyway. You two just need to reach an amicable agreement between yourselves.
After investing roughly two hours into catering to Yuna's whims, I was finally able to visit the coordinates specified by the Playwright.
"Let's see... Is this it?"
Right in the middle of a desolate street, I rooted through an unnaturally placed trash bag. What a pathetic spectacle... Still, since it was the dead of night, there was no need to worry about judgmental stares.
"So this is the Second Prince's plan... and this is the lethal poison synthesized from his innate ability? Wait, why the hell is he handling something this hazardous like common garbage?!"
Inside the trash bag lay a letter outlining the Second Prince's plot, alongside a sealed glass test tube brimming with lethal venom. The letter was one thing, but tossing military-grade lethal poison into a roadside rubbish sack...? One accidental spill and this entire sector could have been wiped off the map.
"Ooh, so that's the rumored poison? How fascinating. How did the Playwright even get his hands on this?"
"Beats me. He scurries around everywhere like a sewer rat, so who knows."
The Playwright's nanomachines were dispersed throughout the empire. Naturally, he couldn't mass-produce them without limit, so he likely only scattered them across high-priority targets. Even so, it was a terrifying power. If those nanomachines invaded a target's respiratory system and tore them apart from the inside, how many could survive it?
The imperial royals, blessed with monstrous physical resilience, could probably endure. And it wouldn't be very effective against the masterminds leading the major terror syndicates, either... But against anyone beneath that monstrous tier, it was practically a guaranteed checkmate.
"The gist of the plan is... well, it's a piece-of-trash plot, thoroughly fitting for the Second Prince."
"Show me, too."
I handed Yuna the rough outline of the Second Prince's scheme uncovered by the Playwright. In short, the concept was straightforward.
"A hostage situation?"
"Slightly different in execution, but basically that."
"How are you going to handle it?"
"Hmm..."
First, the immediate objective was obvious: I had to brew an antidote for the lethal poison generated by the Second Prince's innate ability.
The Second Prince's toxin manifested entirely different symptoms every single time it was deployed. For one victim, it might trigger sudden blindness or total loss of motor function; for another, the agonizing sensation of their intestines tearing to shreds; for yet another, their flesh might liquefy off the bone. From vascular destruction to neurotoxins and massive hemorrhaging, the clinical presentation varied wildly. Despite deploying the exact same substance every time, completely different effects occurred. A truly all-purpose poison.
"I need to synthesize an antidote for the Mood Poison."
Because the venom seemed to behave arbitrarily based on mere whim, people had dubbed it the 'Mood Poison.' And judging by the sheer juvenile stupidity of that name, the Second Prince had coined it himself.
"Do you actually have a way?"
Because its effects differed with every exposure, concocting an antidote was widely considered an impossibility.
"I do. People only think it's impossible because the Second Prince went out of his way to eliminate forensic evidence. In truth, its underlying nature is completely fixed."
Could a single chemical compound that presented totally different physiological symptoms actually exist in nature? The Playwright would flatly dismiss the idea. And I shared his assessment. Even if such a miraculous substance were possible, a poison that convenient wouldn't be handed out so cheaply.
"And as it happens, this is right in my wheelhouse."
People assumed that since the Mood Poison stemmed from the Second Prince's innate ability, he was simply engineering a different formulation every time he struck. But reality told a different story. In truth, the Second Prince only ever wielded one single type of poison.
"He calls it 'Mood Poison' himself, but..."
Strictly speaking, his label wasn't entirely false. The symptoms altered depending on his mood and intent at the moment of detonation. While the chemical components couldn't be broken down through conventional alchemy, neutralizing its effect was shockingly simple.
"Personally, I think 'Illusion Poison' is far more accurate."
"Oh?"
Classified properly, the compound was a sensory neurotoxin. Once it infiltrated a victim's physiology, it merely projected distinct visceral illusions according to the Second Prince's remote command. Rather than deceiving the victim's mind, it hijacked the nervous system itself, forcing the body to hallucinate that it had suffered catastrophic organ failure or chemical burns. Thus, it didn't trigger different ailments every time—it triggered the exact same neurological deception every single time.
And finding an antidote for a poison with a fixed mechanism...?
"Half a day is more than enough."
"Look at you, Yohan. You're kind of cool, aren't you?"
"I've always been cool."
I wouldn't call it child's play, but it was far from impossible.
"Puhihi! That's true. You've always been cool, Yohan. In my eyes, anyway."
"..."
Could she not say things like that out of the blue? It was ridiculously embarrassing.
Just as promised, synthesizing the antidote took a mere half-day.
Granted, quite a few rare, exorbitantly priced ingredients from the workshop met their untimely demise in the process. I couldn't recall the exact crafting ratio from the game, so I had to brute-force the formula through repeated trials. Well, it wasn't like this was the first time. Professor Georg was far past the point of losing his temper over missing reagents anyway.
"All right, this should do it..."
The antidote was complete.
In truth, the simplest and fastest course of action was obvious: deliver the antidote straight into the hands of the First Imperial Prince, Theseus. As a man revered as a paragon of chivalry and hailed as a 'Hero,' if I simply approached him, laid out the stakes, and handed over the vial, he'd accept it without question. What choice he'd make once the trap actually sprung remained to be seen, but backed into a corner with no other options, he would inevitably use the counteragent I provided. A clean, efficient solution.
However...
"...It's best if I avoid exposing my existence entirely."
Theseus was undoubtedly blanketed by layers of covert surveillance. Approaching him as an ordinary academy student wouldn't trigger immediate alarm, but once the crisis unfolded, the narrative would shift drastically. If Theseus miraculously neutralized the threat using an unknown antidote, the imperial spotlight would ruthlessly track down whoever slipped him the cure.
Nor could I approach Theseus sporting a hood or a mask. That would look suspicious as hell. Even I'd draw steel if some shady masked creep approached me whispering, 'Heh heh... you'll find a use for this soon,' while pushing an unidentified vial into my hands. And it wouldn't just be Theseus who smelled foul play; the hidden watchers would react instantly. I'd be pinned to the cobblestones long before I got within whispering distance. The Playwright must have foreseen that exact bottleneck, which was why he dumped the field work onto my shoulders.
Therefore, only one viable path remained.
"Yohan! Everything's set."
"...Yeah. You took your sweet time, didn't you?"
"You said you were taking the field yourself, so I gathered them as fast as I could!"
"Right. Good work."
If obscuring my identity was guaranteed to look suspicious anyway, the best answer was to crash straight into the center of the unfolding catastrophe. If we were going to be suspicious, we might as well make it so glaringly, unmistakably suspicious that everyone would be too terrified of an ambush to strike blindly. Once pandemonium erupted, the watchful eyes previously glued to Theseus would be scattered in the frenzy.
"To think the day would come when Yohan wears this... I'm truly moved."
"I'm feeling thoroughly miserable."
A heavy sigh slipped past my teeth as I stared at the clown mask resting in Yuna's hands. Even though the concept was my own suggestion, I desperately, wholeheartedly loathed having to follow through with it.
"What should our group's name be?"
"Decide whatever you want. In our cover story, you're the ringleader anyway."
"All right!"
And so, we would position ourselves as a rogue third party.
We would forge a phantom syndicate trading upon the terrifying infamy of the Safe Clown. And this phantom syndicate couldn't consist solely of me and Yuna. Two people was far too pathetic a headcount to pass for an underground faction. Which was precisely why I had extended invitations elsewhere.
"Then from this moment on, we are 'The Motley Crew'!"
"What an agonizingly accurate name."
Jeff, the holy paladin who abandoned his divine order the second he received the sacred blessing of Eden.
Melana, the dark mage who ruined her own life by entangling herself in the white chains of Under Chain.
Yuna, the pinnacle of master assassins whose emotional wiring was hopelessly deranged.
And then, plain old me.
A lineup painstakingly assembled to pad the numbers required for criminal theatrics, while mishmashing the signature hallmarks of various terror factions to sow utter chaos. Truly, there was no other word for us.
We were a motley crew through and through.