Rude of Me? I Only "Borrowed" It
"Hm. Good. I understand it perfectly."
Only after hearing the explanation a grand total of five times did Lupin finally understand everything. She had just cleared a hurdle more finicky than any trial she had ever faced—a historic victory for humanity, proof that the beast who never spared her surroundings a glance unless a treasure chest was involved had, in fact, once been human.
It had not been easy. Even while sitting through the fourth identical explanation, she had still been weighing whether to simply crack open the treasure chest beside the field commander. But the hunger to get that safe open as soon as possible served as a detonator, jolting awake every brain cell dozing in her skull. Lightning struck. Scattered facts snapped together all at once, drawn into a single piece as if by a magnet.
Parmenia? Cult.
People colluding with the Cult? A faction out to overthrow the state.
The man in front of her was the ringleader, and the woman on the floor was the one she had met in the basement of the National Assembly.
A summary so clean and simple it was hard to believe Lupin had produced it. Delighted, she all but buzzed on the inside.
What do you know. So I was someone who could do it if I actually tried. Just like Teacher said—I only never put in the effort. I could have been a genius. If I'd known, I would have studied a little harder. Then I wouldn't have been handed two lottery tickets instead of a holiday bonus.
Of course, enlightenment was not pure joy. Pain came right along with it.
"Ugh... is this the curse of knowledge...?"
It felt as if someone had driven a capsaicin-coated needle through her brain about two hundred and fifty times. She had not even been hit in the head, and yet it burned and throbbed like this. All at once the clever ones seemed remarkable again, and the necessity of intellectuals—their very presence—loomed larger than ever. So that was why the idiots who were nothing but muscle always kept one brain type at their side. Strength was supposed to be the advantage, but use your head and you only burned the strength away.
"Right.... This sort of thing ought to be handled by someone who can handle it."
And so Lupin reached a grand resolution: from now on, all thinking would be outsourced. Yegor, being the closest at hand, was a very strong candidate. To make that work, though, she would have to break his stubbornness at least once.
I'm sorry, Lupin. I was stubborn. I failed to see how incredible you are. From now on I'll follow your decisions completely. Anything that requires a brain, leave it all to me.
...Something along those lines. A process of acknowledgment and acceptance.
For the moment, though, look at it any way she liked and Lupin was losing. She had caused an enormous incident at Viscodisco, and what she needed now was a spectacular achievement to turn the mood around. Fortunately, excellent prey stood right in front of her: a grand villain who dreamed of overthrowing the state, M-shaped hairline and all. Perhaps because he thought the part, he looked it too—the field commander.
Lupin toyed with her sword hilt and drifted slowly toward him. Oblivious even in his dreams, he was puffing away on a cigarette. His head was a tangle as it was; having to give the same explanation five times had only made it worse. So the moment a little distance opened between them, he let her name fall behind her back in a rustling heap.
"Even role-play has its limits.... It's not as if I came here to set a house of mourning on fire. Haa."
But what would happen to him if he refused to play along? Parmenia's act, put on purely to survive, had been that sincere, and the field commander had received too much from her to treat her roughly. In the end the only one smiling was Lupin, borrowing Parmenia's identity, while the field commander's precious time slipped away without mercy.
Don't overthink it.... The citizens have the advantage anyway. The nobles will never resort to violence so easily. One wrong move and they could blow their entire base of support, and the whole of the nation's industry could grind to a halt. How would they dare? Best to stall. Ending it like this would be too much of a waste.
The field commander nudged the fallen clerk with the toe of his shoe.
"Sabina. Get up. I know you're awake."
"Y-yes..."
The clerk who had been sprawled on the floor hauled herself up with effort. Swaying, she barely found her balance, and the field commander spoke to her where she stood.
"Restore the documents by any means necessary. I'll give you a week."
"A... a week, sir?"
The clerk's face darkened. The task was that difficult. To prevent forgery, the Assembly paper used in the National Assembly was printed only in limited quantities, the Speaker infusing each sheet with aura. Now that the materials prepared by the Cult were lost, making new ones meant siphoning off a little Assembly paper every single day. And he wanted it done in a week. He was telling her to stake her life on it. There was no way forward now but to die, plain and simple. On the verge of tears, the clerk covered her swollen, bright-red face with both hands....
"...Hm?"
Lupin was standing in front of the two of them before either had noticed.
"You know where the Cult's forces are stationed. Hands up."
The field commander glared at her, nerves fraying. If she was not going to prepare the documents again, was it not about time she dialed the joke back? But Lupin had already brought her own head down on the decision.
A dazzling feat to shock Yegor stiff! Namely, smashing every last Cult force they've stationed here! Something only I can do! And while I'm at it, clean out the Secret Safes! ...But why isn't anyone answering? I'm getting a little. Mad. Huh?
"Answer."
The Lightning Sword made ready to step out for a visit to the Exhibition of the Mysteries of the Human Body. Sensing a killing intent that had come from nowhere, the field commander shouted.
"W-why all of a sudden?!"
"Answer. Quickly. This body is genuinely in a hurry."
The situation being what it was, both of them fell into confusion. But the clerk—the weaker of the two, and the one with nothing left to lose—moved first in order to live.
"I-I know! I can even guide you there!"
"Oh. Overflowing enthusiasm! Tell me everything and I'll let you live!"
"Yes, yes!"
Having infiltrated the National Assembly and handled every sort of document, she had the capital's gray zones of public authority mapped to the last alley. On that basis she had chosen the sites where the Cult's Black Dragon Assault Corps would take up position. Of course she knew. Only the field commander was left dazed, unable to grasp how the situation had turned.
To him, Parmenia was an unambiguous ally. She had given them support beyond counting and had even prepared for the chance that things would go wrong. And now she was suddenly putting a blade to him and demanding the location of the Cult's forces? A Shrine Maiden of the Cult, ignorant of where the Cult's forces were? Not unless the Cult was some absurd leaderless rabble....
Wait.
Only now, long after the fact, did the field commander recall the conversation he had had with the clerk. She had been attacked by a woman with a long pink ponytail. The woman had vanished with the letter that detailed their collusion with the Cult—and with the documents that had been inside the safe besides. He had never gotten a proper look at her face. Only that her figure stood out. A chest and hips bizarrely large, a waist pinched narrow....
Pink. A ponytail.
Parmenia sometimes appeared with her hair a different color. That was why the field commander, seeing Lupin for the first time, had reflexively decided she was Parmenia. That uncanny figure had been identical, as if stamped from the same mold. Besides, this was a secret place not even the citizens' groups knew. Of course it had to be Parmenia.
......It wasn't?
Lupin delivered her final notice to the dumbfounded field commander.
"Nothing to say on your end?"
"You. Don't tell me. You weren't Parmenia—"
—Shk!
Lupin changed position. An afterimage lingered and bound the field commander's sight, but her true body had already passed him.
Fwt!
She flicked the blood from the blade, and half a beat later the field commander's upper body slid off at a slant.
"Lightning Sword, did you enjoy the Exhibition of the Mysteries of the Human Body?"
"Yes! It was fun!"
"I got to see the trapezius, the clavicle, the ribs, the lungs, the liver, the upper heart, and the kidneys!"
"Good. Now it's time to rest at home."
Lupin put the Lightning Sword away with a satisfied look.
Click.
Left standing alone, the field commander's lower half held for a while, then lost its balance, toppled, and spattered blood across the floor.
The clerk, who had watched all of it, swallowed hard. Lupin had seemed to split in two, and the field commander had been cut on a diagonal—a speed no ordinary human eye could ever follow. Just as Vatslava once had, the clerk sensed that little remained of her own lifeline. Lupin looked as if she were enjoying herself, but a red madness hidden behind her irises was surging, ready to spill past the pupils.
"Can you walk? You good?"
"Ah. Yes. I'll walk on my own two—agh."
"Whoa, whoa. Just get on my back. That's faster."
"B-but."
"Want to die, or want a ride?"
"I will take the ride."
With the informant who had found her own way to live slung across her back, Lupin ran—not the night, but the day.
When she arrived at the Cult's first rally point, some thirty of the Cult's strength were there to welcome her: pale figures in black hoods and black masks. At first Lupin wondered why a pack of ninjas had gathered. For all their considerable presence, though, the skill she expected of them was nothing much. By the grading system the pervert bandit chief had taught her, they were nothing but small fry below Grade 4. To Lupin, who had already sent one Aura Master on his way, this amounted to nothing more than a trash-mob massacre. From their side, however, Lupin looked like small fry with no aura at all.
"Holy Heaven, Slay the Demon!!"
"Dark Heaven, the Demon Comes!!"
And so they came flying in, utterly unguarded, chanting slogans only they understood. Did they not know how many openings a jump attack left? Lupin, who had at least learned the basics from Tasili, met the fight with thoughts truly worthy of a swordswoman. Every time Swift Advance seared a line through the space, two people became four pieces and tumbled across the floor. Anyone who tried to slip through the gap and strike ate a Swift Advance Strike: the jaw shattered, and the teeth of the lower jaw punched clean through the throat.
Three or four of the Cult's test subjects, the spitting image of the Vladimir brothers, showed themselves as well—but they were such brainless things that they ended up trading punches with one another and keeling over. Was this the cudgel of love? They loved each other so fiercely they could not endure the triangles and the squares, and down they went, one after another.
At the second rally point, the scene repeated itself.
"Holy Heaven, Slay the Demon!!"
"Dark Heaven, the Demon Comes!!"
Around then, even Lupin felt that something was off. Everyone in a mask acted with the same simple-minded stupidity. No focus in the eyes. Drool spilling from the mouths. She even slowed her attacks on purpose, and still she could not find a single active response. Like zombies, almost.
The third rally point. To turn her suspicion into certainty, Lupin shouted first.
"One Elysium collab set, please!"
A banquet of pure nonsense on that scale ought to have drawn some reaction. The masked band's response was identical to the last.
"Holy Heaven, Slay the Demon!!"
"Dark Heaven, the Demon Comes!!"
The fourth rally point....
The fifth....
And so, reaching the sixth, Lupin kicked the hideout's main gate wide open and shouted. She was sick of hearing it, so she would chant it first. That was the mindset.
"Holy Heaven, the Demon Comes!! Dark Heaven, the Demon Comes!!"
