The World Still Turns (2)
Morning arrived the next day, yet the work of the Foreign Executive Ministry showed no sign of ending.
"Mmm, how far along is the repair of the Leviathan-class Super Dreadnought that our Minister ordered, yeah?"
"We receive reports every midnight. The repair process has currently surpassed thirty-five percent."
That was the status check on the ancient warship Arto had suddenly become obsessed with, ordering its repairs with a near-manic intensity far beyond his usual habits.
"Alina, how are things going over there, yeah?"
-"Oh, of course, little Quantum Core."
-"With so many of the technical slaves gone, the Ministry of Technology and Science keeps dumping every sort of research calculation on me."
"Well, as long as you're doing fine, that's a relief, yeah."
-"Did you have something you wanted to ask me, little Quantum Core?"
"Hm? No, it's just that the Minister won't be able to handle his duties for a few days, yeah. So I'm checking on all the personnel currently out on assignment."
-"My, I had no idea anything like that was going on."
"Well, it's been classified. No real need for you to know, yeah."
That was the check-in and coordination with Alina, who had been dispatched to the Ministry of Technology and Science to fill in for the graduate students conscripted into labor for the ship repairs.
"Gaia, how are you liking life over there, yeah?"
-"Yes, Miss Riel... I truly think it's a peaceful and comfortable place..."
Having completed her rehabilitation training perfectly, Gaia had been sent—under the pretext of testing and training her abilities—to the food research institute on Kazan's moon. In reality, she was simply tending a vegetable garden. Riel was contacting her as well.
One by one, Riel was reaching out to every person Arto had been too busy to look after, gathering status reports.
-"Ah, right. The... children I raised in the garden recently received extremely high praise from the institute..."
"Hoooh, that's great, yeah."
-"So soon I'll send some as gifts to Minister Arto and everyone in the Foreign Executive Ministry..."
"Got it, yeah. I'll tell him separately once the Minister is back."
-"...Come to think of it, where... has the Minister gone?"
Even so, there were things one said and things one did not. Riel tried to brush Gaia's question aside with a suitably vague answer.
-"Why... won't you tell me anything about the Minister...?"
"Ah."
-"Why...?"
Of course, trying to gloss over it with vague non-answers only meant Riel had to endure, completely unprepared, the full force of the dark and obsessive feelings Gaia harbored toward "the Minister."
Once the conversation with Gaia was finally over—
"And what is our Countess Ash doing right now, yeah?"
The nanomachine collective they had picked up last time from that place overflowing with unidentified nanomachines—the same entity that had served as the Warlord's final weapon—had been granted a countess title by the Empire. Managing Ash was another duty that fell to Riel in Arto's absence.
Fortunately, when it came to Ash, Riel had even less to worry about than with counterintelligence work. Far less, in fact.
"She is still waiting beside the orbital open-air shipyard where the ancient warship is under repair, continuously altering her form at random."
"Hmm."
Ash never wandered off on her own. She simply stayed glued to the side of the ancient warship undergoing repairs, endlessly kneading and reshaping her body the way a child plays with modeling clay.
"Then if anything unusual comes up, report back then, yeah."
"Understood, Aide Riel."
And once the matter of Ash was settled—
"Minister!!!"
"Please return Miss Alina to us!!!"
Apparently because Alina, the ultimate cheat key for administrative work, was once again stuck at the Ministry of Technology and Science—
"Rise, you cursed office workers!"
"Unite, all of you!"
—the civil servants at the very heart of the Empire, the ultimate theocracy, somehow began belting out the Internationale in the style of the red-flavored Fuxoviet from the opposite side of the galaxy and tried to start a revolution.
"The Minister isn't here right now. Want me to handle you myself, yeah?"
"Ah."
"The Minister isn't in? Then I guess we have no choice."
Such petty "pranks" might have flown when Arto was around. But repeating the same stunt in his absence risked being dealt with in complete seriousness by a Riel who had switched into full work mode. The office slaves who had been about to launch a red revolution in the middle of a theocracy quietly returned to their desks as if nothing had happened and got back to work.
Riel's acting administration, however, soon ran into a major crisis.
"...Hold on a second, yeah. Say that again?"
"W-we only just received the report ourselves, but Prosnak fleets have broken through Zeltech's border defense star clusters and are currently rampaging across the entirety of Zeltech territory!"
"Does that even make sense right now, yeah?"
Common sense dictated that when one nation mobilized its fleets to wage war on another, the movement would be completely exposed to every surrounding power. Even if it weren't, the overseas spy network Arto had spent nearly a decade meticulously building should have delivered that intelligence long ago.
Yet somehow, this time they had failed to detect Prosnak's invasion in advance. They only learned of it after Zeltech's defense fleets had been annihilated, its entire territory was being overrun, and massive waves of refugees began pouring in.
When Riel scolded him with a mixture of irritation and fury that carried exactly that meaning, the overseas intelligence officer standing before her broke into a cold sweat across his bulky frame and offered nothing but apologies.
"I am truly sorry. I have no words, Aide Riel."
"How exactly does a situation end up like this? At least try giving me an excuse, yeah."
Faced with that attitude, the intelligence officer somehow managed, under the crushing pressure, to explain how things had unfolded...
"...So several of our northeastern branch offices had their covers blown and were eliminated, and the entire intelligence network in the Zeltech direction completely collapsed, yeah?"
"Th-that's correct. But while the eastern network had also taken considerable damage, we lowered the recovery priority of the northeastern network and, well..."
The moment she heard the officer's continuing explanation, every trace of irritation and anger vanished from Riel's face. In its place settled pure, absolute absence of emotion.
That Riel then directed thoroughly emotionless words at the officer bowing his head right in front of her.
"I see, yeah... So who changed that priority?"
"That is..."
"Speak. Now."
"I changed it, Aide Riel."
Riel continued questioning the officer—who only answered after repeated prompting—in the same tightly controlled tone.
"Why did you change it, yeah?"
"Well... given that we had established a cooperative relationship with Prosnak this time, I intended to reallocate the resources used for the northeastern network toward restoring the vast eastern intelligence network..."
Realizing he was not being threatened but merely questioned, the officer grew more at ease and began explaining the situation in greater detail.
After hearing the result, Riel gave a light nod...
"What are you waiting for? Seize him already."
"Pardon? What do you mean by—"
Shhk!
The instant the words left Riel's mouth—before the intelligence officer could even finish speaking—a monomolecular cutter from a Purge Squad member who had appeared behind him cleanly severed his neck.
A massive spray of blood erupted from the stump and drenched Riel from head to toe, but—
Thud! Roll, roll...
Slump... thud!
—Riel paid it no mind. She stopped the officer's head as it rolled toward her with her foot, then grabbed it by the hair with one hand and lifted it to eye level. Her expression remained utterly calm as she spoke.
"Did you know? Even after a person's head is cut off, they retain consciousness for several dozen seconds, yeah."
Of course, the officer whose head had already been severed had no windpipe left with which to answer. But Riel was not speaking because she expected a reply from him.
"So listen carefully before you lose consciousness. And all of you currently connected to this guy's communications—listen carefully too, yeah."
With that, Riel cradled the officer's head in both hands.
"I don't care what kind of corruption you people commit, yeah."
She shifted her blood-soaked hands so that they now cupped both ears and cheeks.
"To be blunt, I don't give a damn if you run drug trafficking on-site, if you harass ordinary civilians while doing human trafficking, if you operate black markets, or if you do any other grotesque shit imaginable, yeah."
Immediately after, she rotated her wrists slightly so that her index fingers pointed toward the eye sockets.
"But I have no intention of standing by and watching you trash the plans the Minister worked so hard to build just because of your pathetic little corruption schemes, yeah."
Crunch! Squish!
Drip, drip... plop!
With a sickening sound, Riel crushed "them." Her face remained expressionless as she spoke.
"So 'you lot' are all scrap now. Trash."
Not long afterward, the vast majority of the management positions in the overseas intelligence network of the Foreign Executive Ministry—the pride of the Holy Sevelian Empire—were quietly replaced by other people.
Because it was work of the shadows, it never reached the press. Arto himself was in no position to concern himself with such minor, miscellaneous affairs.
And so the matter was buried, silently and completely, beneath the flow of time and events, without anyone ever knowing.