Wait, That's Not a Cat—That's a Lion
It was five in the afternoon. The long line began, slowly, to move, and people passed through the security checkpoint one by one.
Today, no matter how high one's noble rank, a body search had to be endured. To refuse an order at a party hosted by the Prime Minister himself was as good as declaring the whole country an enemy.
Of course, specialists were deployed so that no one would be unduly inconvenienced. This was the so-called Detection Unit: they kept the touch of hands upon the body to a minimum and used aura to search out only what did not belong. They sought unclean energies of the sort that clung to magical beasts, and they detected whether a guest carried weapons—guns, swords, and the rest. It was a human being doing the work of those door-shaped machines from Lupin's homeland.
Grand Duke Dmitri, Speaker of the Assembly, stood beside the checkpoint where the Detection Unit worked, watching with care to see that the invited guests passed without incident. Today of all days, he could not set his mind at ease unless he saw it with his own eyes.
It had begun as a simple plan to add one more person to the family, and somehow it had become a festival staking the honor of every noble in the Republic—with even the imperial princess of the Blumang Empire in attendance. If the cult bastards showed up out of nowhere on a day like this and raised hell… he didn't even want to imagine it. He would want to lay down his title, his speakership, everything, and go into seclusion.
As if to prove those worries were not misplaced, the knight commander charged with managing the outdoor line and repelling unauthorized intruders came running into the entrance hall where the checkpoint stood.
"Your Grace. There is a matter you should confirm."
"Go on. What is it?"
"Several guests have broken from the line outside. Might they be cult spies taking flight because they can't bear a thorough search of their persons?"
"Today, of all days? Suspicious. Notify the special unit as soon as the list is compiled."
"Yes. If anything else strikes me as questionable, I will report it."
The nobles who had cursed Lupin under their breath at the tailor's and fled in a panic of their own making could no longer escape tax investigations and every other kind of merciless audit. Failing to attend a party could leave consequences this large in its wake. This was why a person ought always to strive to stand unashamed.
Meanwhile, a brief quarrel broke out at the leftmost checkpoint.
"I'm sorry, but would you let us take a proper look over here?"
It was Yegor, in disguise. He had glued a mustache beneath his nose and a beard along his jaw and drawn in wrinkles, mimicking the other attendees well enough, but perhaps because a mask hid everything above his nose, the Detection Unit officer assigned to that checkpoint stubbornly refused to let him through.
"Surely this is sufficient? I told you my face is so badly swollen I can hardly show it."
"Then please step this way and show it only to me. The Prime Minister gave the order himself. I can't pass you through as you are."
"Honestly. What a nuisance. Fine."
Take the disguise off, and they would see he was someone else. So Yegor had no choice but to act. Once a person could wield aura at will, it became possible, depending on how it was released, to constrict one particular part of one particular body. Like so: press, where no one else could see, only the blood vessels around the throat, and cut off the blood flowing to the head. A member of the Detection Unit who had not reached the level of an aura Master would understand nothing at all before dropping with a soft thud.
Yegor put on a show of alarm, shouting and waving his hands.
"Over here! Someone's collapsed!"
Seeing it, Dmitri sent several knights who had been waiting on standby. Yegor passed the checkpoint as naturally as a man who had already been searched. It wasn't that he was coming to resemble Lupin, exactly. As Vatslava had judged, he had always had a rough streak of his own.
At that same moment, in the underground water channel on the north side of the Prime Minister's residence.
It was an important party. The walls, the waterways, even the sewers—there was nowhere left unwatched. But there was a limit to how much ground anyone could cover. The instant the side that meant to attack stepped past the line of what was reasonable, defense turned useless.
With a flick, Klein tossed an empty vial into the running water and muttered. A moment ago, that bottle had held Parmenia's sleeping poison, the sort that put a person under for a full day and a night.
"This is the last of the Deep Dream, too."
Where in the world was Parmenia, and what was she doing? Test subjects, shock troops, drugs—without the woman in charge of final inspection, production schedules kept slipping. Klein, however, was a busy woman herself. Left with no other choice, she had hauled in every test subject still remaining with the cult, in whatever condition she could find them.
The original plan, to overturn the country and seize the Holy Ark as a natural consequence, had fallen apart. Nothing remained but the violent way. Fail, and she would have to shoulder the blame in full—but if she could obtain Lupin, wasn't that a truly cheap price? Above all, Klein was confident she could reach her goal even if it cost a few sacrifices.
Crunch. Crack. Test subjects that had risen from the water tore greedily into the corpses of the knights. The aura laced through the flesh and blood of those sleeping men became the creatures' nourishment as a matter of course, and the subjects, massive to begin with, swelled even larger.
"I wonder what kind of choice Big Sis will make this time~. It'd be nice if she came along~."
The primary objective was to seize the Holy Ark concealed somewhere in the Prime Minister's residence. Should that fail, there was Plan Beta: draw Lupin over to the cult. Should even that fail, Plan Gamma stood ready—to make Cheonmyeong Jiwang come seek Lupin out himself.
Cheonmyeong Jiwang had sealed himself inside the altar in his bid to transcend humanity. The other heads who carried the cult's will in his place were the Shrine Maidens, were they not? Klein was no match for Parmenia. Even so, she was not the sort of fool who did nothing but swing a concealed sword and cause disasters.
"There's a proper mess to make. I wonder if she's ready to fight Klein? Hehe."
Little time remained before the star of the party made her entrance. Before a brightly lit vanity, Lupin was putting the last touches on her adornment.
Makeup. What was it? A dreadful civilization in which your brows itched so fiercely you wanted to pluck them out, and yet every twitch of an eyelid ruined the work, so you had to wipe it away and draw it all over again. Nor was the wiping any kinder. They used a material that barely came off unless you scrubbed hard enough to drag the skin along with it.
Lupin's eyelids trembled. Over those fluttering lashes a fast-drying pigment was layered on, until brows that had already been full grew as lavish as a bird's tail feathers.
"Just a little… just a little longer, please?"
But this suffering, too, was only one last step from its end. Endure the tickling, press it down, and—
"Done!"
And just like that, she became a lady making her debut today.
The friend who had suffered through the makeup until now stepped back, and another came to wave a small fan for her.
"Just a moment. It only needs to dry."
A gentle little breeze. The sweat on the bridge of her nose cooled, and her heart eased. Feeling that her brows were subtly heavier than before, Lupin slowly opened her eyes.
The person in the mirror…
…Who are you?
"How is it? She looks like a completely different person, doesn't she?"
"Her face had a rather boyish look, so we did our best to bring out as much feminine charm as we could. I do hope it pleases you."
"You're absolutely gorgeous, Lady Lupin!"
"Truly!"
Lupin produced the exclamation that anyone who has undergone a sudden, drastic change is bound to let slip.
"Eh? Kore ga watashi?"
While the young ladies giggled, unable to make sense of that alien tongue, Lupin shot to her feet and spun in a circle. Her body had always been light; only her face felt heavy. So this was face armor—the way women guarded their faces!
Come to think of it, a friend's girlfriend had said a woman shouldn't casually show her bare face. In public, out of courtesy, you had to keep it veiled behind something called makeup, or whatever it was she'd said. A thoroughly traditional view of women, that—but Elysium itself was an old-fashioned world, so when formality was required, as it was today, makeup was bound to follow.
And yet another thought occurred to her as well. Makeup. Wasn't that something only people with no confidence in their faces bothered with?
Honestly, Lupin overflowed with confidence in front of a mirror. Every time she caught her reflection in the water, she would press the groundless claim that this had to be top-tier for the entire setting. Add Charm on top of that and produce a face that needed no makeup, and she wouldn't have to raise a fuss powdering and painting herself the way she had today. At the very least, wouldn't her face feel lighter whenever there was an event?
…Has the time come to unseal Charm?
What would happen once Charm was released? Did she even know? Of course Lupin didn't. She had never raised it.
Well… if something like this comes up the next time I get a Holy Ark, I'll worry about it then.
Charm, which had only been smiling, went right on smiling….
Meanwhile, in the hall, the Prime Minister was delivering a long speech on Lupin's achievements, stoking the mood of the party. Dmitri, who would have to lead her out, was wound tight with nerves. They had worked so hard to float the star of the evening sky-high; if the star who actually appeared proved a letdown, what would become of the room? It wasn't quite a matter on which the family's fate depended. Even so, he was not a man who could enjoy a party once the air had gone cold.
Kakavita had vowed she would send the girl out in peak condition, but could a wild thing like Lupin truly adapt? He worried she might rip the dress for being uncomfortable, or mash her face because the makeup felt stifling.
But—
"Ohh."
As if to sweep those worries aside, the Lupin who appeared was astonishing. So there had been a reason for Kakavita's bold claim that she would somehow correct the imbalance between head and body.
"My. She'll set fire to the hearts of a great many young lords today."
Lupin did not catch the words young lords. Imagining what might be inside the Holy Ark, her mind's processing capacity had begun to run short.
"Fire? Should I have brought a fire extinguisher?"
"Ho ho! To think that lively rascal has turned into such a lady. No need to worry whether she'll get along with people. Come, let's go. It's time."
"Yes. I'll follow behind you."
Just as Kakavita had taught her, Lupin pinched up the front of her dress—pat, pat, pat—and followed Dmitri on light feet. The curious had already packed the corridor, waiting only for Lupin to emerge, and the men among them, beholding the refinement and dignity that seemed to rise from her of their own accord, clutched at their hearts one after another.
"How has one so beautiful only now shown her face to the world? The people of this earth have been robbed of half their lives!"
With that sudden, homemade verse bringing up the rear, Lupin came to stand on the fountain-shaped staircase to the second floor, the one that opened into the grand hall—today's true stage. The Prime Minister, who had been waiting, stretched a hand back toward her.
Gazes poured down without number. Feeling a pressure she had no real reason to feel, Lupin touched her waist before she knew it. Weapons were not permitted during the party. It felt strangely bare. Still, she had the pigeon, so if there was any comfort in that, it would have to do.
She thought of Kakavita, who had made her into what she was today.
You're watching from heaven, aren't you? I've debuted looking like such a proper young lady.
I just want to open the Holy Ark already…….
With a faint smile, Lupin waved her right arm—a cheat sheet crammed edge to edge with the attendee list hidden inside the sleeve.
