Chapter 123
Chapter 123
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 123
Chapter Title: Starseeker (2)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Just then, the engine room suddenly grew noisy.
A sound, distinctly different from the usual clamor, echoed from all directions.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh…
A moment later, dark figures began to appear.
A swarm of them.
Shadows burst forth from everywhere—the ceiling, the walls, the floor.
‘…!’
‘…!’
The shadows that had appeared swarmed toward me.
Startled, I looked over at the Rose Garden Director and the dwarf.
“Yes or no. A single word is enough. What is there to think about?”
“Ah, well. It's not that simple!”
Their grim faces showed no surprise or curiosity about the shadows that had suddenly appeared.
Not even when one of the shadows passed between them.
It seemed I was the only one who could see the black shadows.
‘…!’
‘…!’
‘…!’
The shadows surrounded me, chattering loudly.
Their voices were filled with unmistakable glee.
I didn't know why, but they were happy.
But that was all.
That was all I could understand.
‘…!’
‘…!’
A language I'd never heard before.
I couldn't understand a single word the shadows were saying.
Nevertheless, the shadows kept trying to talk to me.
It was baffling.
Is this what it feels like to be surrounded by locals in a foreign country where you don't speak the language?
The chatter of dozens of shadows began to give me a headache.
‘…?’
‘…?’
As I clutched my head, the murmuring began to subside.
Then it stopped completely.
Swoosh.
One of the shadows approached me.
It was the same one that had spoken to me first.
‘…’
The shadow spoke to me haltingly.
But its accent and pronunciation were very different from before.
Familiar, yet foreign.
“Uh.”
My eyes widened.
Though it was slurred and hard to understand, like a foreigner speaking, it was clearly the Imperial language.
It was great that we could finally communicate, and it was nice that the shadow was jumping for joy.
Yes. It was all good.
“Go… together…?”
The content was the problem.
Before I could even answer, the shadow rushed at me.
Swoop.
The sensation of something entering my body.
Flash.
In that instant, the world before my eyes collapsed.
* * *
The Knight of Gales was in a foul mood.
Being suddenly saddled with the tedious role of a babysitter was irritating enough, but the loss of his connection to the stars upon entering the satellite city had set his nerves on edge.
If the former was merely an annoyance, the latter was akin to a primal sense of danger.
He was holding it in, not wanting to look foolish in front of the cadet, but the sense of loss he felt was by no means small.
It was as if he had gone blind and deaf.
There was no way his words would come out nicely.
“Was my question too difficult to understand?”
“Then let me put it simply. Have you sided with the Empress?”
“Where has the pride and dignity of a master craftsman gone?”
He continued to press the dwarf.
The Vice Director's warnings—to be careful with the interrogation since this was the person in charge of the main power unit for the massive satellite city, and to refrain from treating him like a traitor from the start, as dwarves were known for their unwavering loyalty and might have other circumstances—were completely absent from his mind at that moment.
“What did you receive from the Empress in exchange for your loyalty?”
“Loyalty is a human concept! My clan knows nothing of such things!”
As he snapped at him, the dwarf roared back in anger.
“The nerve to turn the tables?”
“My, what a frustrating person you are.”
But the dwarf seemed to have something to hide, for instead of answering, he just stroked his poor beard.
“If the answer is no, then just say no. Why drag this out?”
“Because I made a promise.”
“What promise?”
“I can't tell you that. That's part of the promise, too.”
It wasn't easy to read the expression of the dwarf, whose face was completely covered in a beard.
The only evidence of his agitation was the troubled look that surfaced in his deep-set eyes.
“Anyway, it's not what you're thinking. Ah, honestly. We don't serve anyone like you humans do.”
“You keep denying it, even with evidence.”
“I don't know what this evidence is! But I swear on my clan's forge, I have never done anything to betray your trust.”
Just as his suspicion and doubt were turning into certainty, the dwarf swore on his forge, proclaiming his innocence.
For a moment, even the Knight of Gales was at a loss for words.
Dwarves were not a race skilled in lying.
Much less were they a race so corrupt as to lie while swearing on their clan's forge.
To them, the clan's forge was absolute divinity itself.
For the dwarves, each one a master craftsman and a priest of the 'Unquenchable Flame', to deny their own divinity was no different from a knight denying their own guardian constellation.
And that meant the dwarf before him had not betrayed the Cradle to side with the Empress.
The Knight of Gales, in a slightly softer tone, asked about his relationship with the Empress.
“If I were to put it in human terms, you could say we made a deal. It was before I came here, and the deal was with her predecessor, not the Empress herself.”
He asked what that deal was.
Of course, the tight-lipped dwarf didn't reveal any details.
“The clan's forge does not answer to the faithless who break their promises. As a craftsman, I have already taken too many risks. I can't do any more.”
With those words, the dwarf fell silent, and the Knight of Gales was lost in thought.
The dwarf before him and a previous generation of House Haime, the Empress's family, had made some kind of secret pact.
That was all he had figured out.
Figuring out the rest…
“I'll have to leave it to Henkel.”
…was a job for the Vice Director.
It seemed like a plausible conclusion even to himself, and he felt satisfied.
“I misunderstood. I apologize.”
“From my perspective, I can't see how the deal could cause any trouble, but who knows what the other party thinks. I am often surprised by the cunning tricks and shamelessness of humans.”
He said he was fed up with humans who would find any loophole to twist a promise to their advantage.
The dwarf shuddered.
At this point, their roles were bound to reverse.
Having accused an innocent man of being a traitor, he had no choice but to endure the scolding and criticism until the other's anger subsided.
“Huh? Our kid!”
If it hadn't been for his suddenly missing companion, he would have gladly endured that time.
“Where's the kid! Kid!”
The Knight of Gales belatedly looked for his companion.
At first, he thought the kid had simply stepped away, bored with his argument with the dwarf.
But that wasn't it.
The kid was nowhere to be seen, not in the engine room, not in the hallway.
Even after thoroughly searching, lifting the pipes and wires that filled the engine room, it was the same.
It was as if the kid had vanished into thin air, leaving no trace.
“This is a disaster…”
The Knight of Gales squeezed his eyes shut.
The interior of the satellite city was a place where inexplicable things happened all the time.
Seeing mysterious black shadows.
Hearing strange auditory hallucinations.
Suddenly losing consciousness and waking up in a completely different place.
All sorts of ghost stories were real occurrences inside the Cradle.
There was a reason the dwarf was the only one in this vast space.
They possessed eyes and ears that could not be deceived by incorporeal beings.
Anyway, this was serious.
Losing a cadet inside the satellite city was a problem, and the fact that this particular cadet was an incredibly important kid in the Cradle was an even bigger problem.
“My, for a Director, you're quite flustered. He'll turn up if you wait. Hasn't this sort of thing happened several times before?”
The clueless dwarf chided him with an indifferent look.
“You don't know what you're talking about!”
He yelled back at the infuriating words.
The kid isn't just any kid.
“If he's not just any kid?”
The Knight of Gales trembled.
“He's a kid favored by a being as fearsome as the stars—no, more fearsome than the stars.”
The stars are distant, but the Black Knight's sword is near.
He had already experienced that fact to a sickening degree.
“If something happens to the kid…”
The mere thought was horrifying.
Perhaps the history of the Cradle would end with his generation.
“Really? All this fuss over one missing cadet? You're overreacting. Anyway, I understand that the kid is important.”
The dwarf, still failing to grasp the situation, continued his carefree remarks.
“Kid! Kid!”
The Knight of Gales called out for the cadet until his throat was raw.
But no matter how desperately he called, no answer came.
By the time he finally gave up the search and emerged onto the surface of the satellite city, dawn was already breaking.
“Ah…”
His connection with the stars returned to normal, and the sense of loss that had been tormenting him vanished.
His anxious heart naturally calmed down.
He kicked off the ground.
Using the power of the stars to sprint within the Cradle was against the rules, but this was no time to be concerned with trivial regulations.
He had to inform the Vice Director as quickly as possible and come up with a plan.
Whether they organized a search party or not, finding the cadet safely was the top priority.
Compared to that, the criticism for bringing a mere cadet into a key facility of the satellite city was nothing.
As the Knight of Gales sprinted, kicking off the ground and leaping over buildings, he came to an abrupt halt.
“Hah.”
Before him, a black-haired woman dressed entirely in black was waiting for him.
Professor Navian—no, the Black Knight.
The Knight of Gales froze on the spot.
Of all people, he had run into the one person he wanted to avoid the most.
It was the worst-case scenario.
“Something important disappeared while I was sleeping.”
He instantly realized that the 'important thing' the Black Knight was talking about was the same as the 'thing he had lost'.
“So I was tracking its scent.”
The Black Knight lifted her head and looked somewhere.
Without even turning around, the Knight of Gales knew her gaze was fixed on the path he had just run.
“Lead the way.”
Her words were not a request.
It was the command of an absolute being who didn't even consider the possibility of refusal or opposition.
The Knight of Gales felt a surge of anger.
Even though their respective standings had been decided, the Black Knight's attitude was excessive.
It made him feel like he was the Black Knight's subordinate.
The defiance of a high-ranking knight became a sharp aura, and that aura whipped up into a gale.
Twitch.
The Black Knight's eyebrow shot up.
In that instant, the raging wind scattered as if it had never been.
“…Follow me.”
The Knight of Gales thought as he turned.
This was purely out of a sense of responsibility for the cadet who had gone missing due to his own carelessness.
It was because he judged that the Black Knight's ability to track the presence of the silently vanished cadet to this place might be helpful.
It was absolutely not because he had been overwhelmed by the Black Knight's aura.
“This area blocks the connection with the stars, so before you enter, be sure to prepare your—”
Thud.
Before his explanation was finished, the Black Knight stepped through the door.
“…?”
But her face was perfectly calm.
Her face and demeanor showed not a single trace of the sense of loss that came from the severed connection.
Spurred on by this, the Knight of Gales also stepped through the door.
But it seemed pretending to be as unaffected as the Black Knight was too much for him.
“Gasp!”
The price for his hasty entry was a strange groan.
“Ahem.”
The Knight of Gales quickly shook off the feeling of disconnection, composed his expression, and began to lead the way as if nothing had happened.
“Just in case, if something formless speaks to you or approaches, absolutely do not—”
The Black Knight lightly stomped her foot.
An invisible wave of energy shot forward.
Rustle.
Immediately after, a clamoring sound was heard from somewhere, and the hallway brightened.
“Absolutely what?”
“…Nothing.”
Glancing at the nonchalantly questioning Black Knight, the Knight of Gales grumbled to himself.
To have that kind of presence without the blessing of the stars.
None of it made any sense, from start to finish.
He gave up on trying to gauge the Black Knight's abilities.
Patter, patter.
His steps had somehow become more polite.
The Knight of Gales silently and diligently fulfilled his role as a guide.
And so, they finally arrived at the engine room.
“Huh?”
The kid who had disappeared was there.
“…So, if you repair it like that, it's just a temporary fix that makes things worse. You know what happens when you pee on a frozen foot? It feels warm for a moment, then freezes solid, right? That's exactly what this is.”
He was there, explaining something or other to the dwarf.
He rubbed his eyes.
It was certainly a relief that the missing kid was back, but the scene was somehow strange.
“Do you understand what I'm saying?”
The dwarf shook his head.
“Hah. This is frustrating. Why can't you understand this? Okay, let me explain again. This block is a lost cause. Even if you manage a sloppy fix to keep it running, it'll just put more strain on the other blocks. Trying to save one block will end up taking all the others down with it…”
The one teaching explained patiently, while the one listening was so focused he didn't even notice who had arrived.
It was a heartwarming scene.
“Heh heh heh.”
But the Knight of Gales, upon seeing the scene, could only let out a dry laugh.
Because no matter how he looked at it, it seemed the kid was the one doing the teaching.