Episode 77: Can You Reach It?
"……This concludes the meeting."
With Anastasia's words, the meeting that had dragged on for so long came to an end. The executives bowed their heads to the Darkness, then cut their video feeds.
"The world is turning faster than I thought."
The Darkness spun the globe. Hundreds of nations, labeled in English, whipped past until a single finger stopped the turning world and pressed down on an island in the Pacific.
Another war had broken out there. One the meeting had never mentioned.
Hawaii.
The Darkness slid his finger away.
Kilauea came into view, the volcano he had pressed so hard. His eyes narrowed. He saw the unknown veil wrapped around it, and as if he stood on that ground himself, he swept his gaze once across the surroundings. Satisfied, he nodded and looked away.
"……How do you intend to handle Hawaii?"
Anastasia asked. Her face was far colder than it had been during the meeting. The executives had been given only the bare minimum. She knew what had happened there.
The Darkness shrugged.
"Is there anything worth handling?"
"Won't it be dangerous?"
"Dangerous, yes. But it isn't as if we can lay a hand on it, is it?"
He was right. Weighed against the executives' strength and the power of the organization, Hawaii could not be beaten. If he himself stepped in, none of that would matter…….
"Then…… will you leave it as it is?"
Anastasia was uneasy. A power beyond human imagination could not simply be left alone. The world was shifting at a brutal pitch, and things beneath the surface were breaking through their shells. The war between Ilshikgyo and Europe had been only a symptom.
"What do you think?"
He tossed it back like a mischievous brat. There was no face, only darkness, yet the two lights flickering within it were waiting for something.
"……I believe we should take, at the very least, the minimum measures."
"And what is that minimum?"
Anastasia turned it over for a moment.
Everything that had happened in the world sorted itself, piece by piece, inside her small head.
Ilshikgyo would fall silent for a long time after its defeat. The high priest and the priestly ranks had been slaughtered without mercy, and with what had happened in Hawaii, the cult might never rise again.
Europe would need decades at the least to recover from the war. Capitals lay in ruins, economies were paralyzed, the world economy had sunk with them, and company after company was going bankrupt in a line.
War orphans and refugees would strip Europe's borders of meaning for a while, and the diplomatic noise over each nation's interests and survival would never cease.
Something ominous seethed across South America. It could not be grasped, and there was not a single clue. The number of the missing was climbing exponentially.
In China, the war between Heavenly Punishment and Negus had dragged villains and buried blights up out of the dark, and the Party government's attempt to bring them to heel had turned the country into a shambles.
Japan was in chaos from an oversupply of heroes, a collapse in their quality, and a sharp rise in villains. In that chaos every sort of hero corruption had burst into the open, and there were even signs of villains playing hero.
Russia was supporting Europe on the surface, but behind it the country was eyeing the war to swell its military and secretly enlisting its own heroes. It did not care that its economy had been smashed.
Southeast Asia showed the signs of civil war. Africa groaned under superpowered dictators.
In the Middle East, religious strife kept death from ever stopping, and the United States was drawing up plans black at the heart.
Korea, with every neighbor gone mad, was scheduled to go mad along with them.
In a situation like this, she had to think of the best move they could play.
Korea was classified as a special-grade danger zone. They could not send their own people there.
Then they would have to wield someone else's blade as their own.
"……We set one against the other."
Anastasia's eyes flashed.
"Explain. In detail."
"……We use Japan's Shrine, and China's Heavenly Punishment. The Shrine has already reached into Korea, and Heavenly Punishment has swallowed the seat Unjinhoe left empty. If Heavenly Punishment means to take over Unjinhoe's operations, we help them restore the Korean routes that collapsed. As for the Shrine, we hand over what they want in exchange. They will not be pleased to see a Hero Association rise in Korea."
He clapped twice.
"Good. You actually put that little head to work."
But.
"Fifty points, Anastasia."
He pointed to three places. Korea, Japan, and China.
"Heavenly Punishment ate Unjinhoe to secure transport. They don't have any other idea in mind. Those bastards are more broken in the head than Ilshikgyo, so money and power mean nothing to them."
The line drawn out of China reached Korea.
"They'll cross over on whatever faint routes are left. Some of them will just board a plane like anyone else. I don't know why. I don't need to. Leave them alone and they'll make a mess on their own."
The line ran on and touched Japan.
"The Shrine, as you said, won't want Korea growing stronger. Their own country is a wreck, and they don't care to live with the unease of a neighbor getting powerful. But that's secondary. They're split into factions over there. One side wants to swallow Korea while they have the chance, the other doesn't, and the two are at odds. Back only one of them and the balance breaks."
"Then what are the remaining fifty points?"
If it was neither this nor that, what were they supposed to touch? If they simply did nothing, would that be enough?
"Do nothing, and they'll still fight each other with Korea as the battlefield. Korea hasn't finished settling. A sudden attack will stall it, and the Dan Clan will be too busy cleaning up the mess to move."
"Then isn't that enough?"
"Absolutely not."
He remembered it. That terribly, terribly dangerous thing.
"Korea has it. Heavenly Punishment, the Shrine—they'll all shatter in front of it. Then they won't be a danger. They can't become one. They'll simply pass on through."
"What is it, that you speak of it so? The Stone of Resurrection? Or Dan Miryu?"
"Neither."
"Then is it a god?"
"Anastasia. You do ask amusing things."
Did she imagine he would be this wary of a mere god?
"A god would be convenient. I've already seen every one of them."
And if that were the case, Korea would never have been made a special-grade danger zone.
"Anastasia. Do nothing, and East Asia will become a comparatively peaceful place. More so than anywhere else."
By the mere existence of that thing.
"The world has to be in chaos. Not a single place left out. Only then—"
—would that thing be unable to move freely.
"Do you understand now?"
Anastasia swallowed.
"……What is it, exactly, that you guard against it so?"
She truly wanted to know.
That existence, who looked upon even gods as laughable and looked down upon the world—what was he wary of?
"Wet your throat a moment."
He opened the refrigerator set along one wall of the conference room. Dozens of drinks stood in neat rows. He took two cans of cola.
"Catch."
"Yes? I—yes."
She glanced at the cola she had caught without thinking, then carefully popped the tab. Two bright hisses rang out, followed by gulping, and both half-liter cans were empty in an instant.
"Mmm. Good. That fizz is as addictive as ever."
He crushed the can and flung it at the distant bin.
Tink. Tink.
It struck the rim and bounced back out.
"Oh, come on……."
"Hup."
Anastasia sank it.
"Tch. Let's go."
Smacking his lips, he dragged Anastasia out of the conference hall. A beautiful lobby greeted them, the chandelier on the ceiling lit.
The moment they stepped out, he answered her question.
"The thing I spoke of is a human."
"Yes? A human?"
What does he mean?
"In a philosophical sense?"
He shook his head.
"No. Human by kind, human in appearance, human in the way he breathes, human in the way he thinks."
Nothing to add and nothing to take away. A human, pure and simple.
"That's just—"
A person. Isn't it?
"Right. Right now I am extremely wary of one person."
Wary enough that even he was afraid.
Anastasia's expression hardened. For him to say that much, what kind of monster was it?
"……Who is it?"
"Don't try to find out. Remember the order I gave on Korea."
A special-grade danger zone.
Anyone who set foot there without leave died by his hand.
"If you want to go, you may."
But.
"You will answer for the cost yourself."
And before she died at his hands, she would come face to face with it. It would not kill her. It would not even think of killing her. It had no gift for killing anyone.
But.
"At the end, when you look at me, you will understand. The death I grant you—"
—was mercy, and happiness.
"……I will remember."
Anastasia's head bowed of its own accord.
"Shall we talk about the remaining fifty points?"
The fifty Anastasia had earned. Now they had to be filled in. The last piece of the puzzle, the one that setting one side against the other could not supply.
"The Dan Clan holds that piece."
"The Dan Clan……?"
"Because it is closely bound to the Dan Clan."
"……You don't mean him?"
"I never meant to use him……. But you use a thing when you can."
China and Japan were making their moves. Was it not only right that this side lend a hand as well?
"Summon Dan Miryong."
"……Understood."
Anastasia quietly withdrew.
"If you learn that I laid a hand on the Dan Clan, you won't leave me be."
It contradicted what he himself had done. Anastasia might be thinking it too. Where had all that caution been sold off to?
"But I'm curious."
Every last one of your actions stirred me, idle and bored as I was. Nothing else ever could.
Give me an answer.
An answer, for me, who has spent a lifetime in worry and in pain.
Then you will be able to obtain it.