The Arsenal of Democracy (3)
Delis Bloomfeld waited anxiously in her Greenwich home in London for the news that would soon arrive. Well, calling it a "home" was a bit of a stretch, considering it was a residential property provided to her as an office. But on second thought, "anxious" probably wasn't the right word either. Now that her father was gone, the two people she trusted most in the world were personally on the move. It was obvious that those two would not only achieve their goal but exceed it. Just as they had in Korea.
If there was any cause for concern, it was the possibility of them getting hurt in the process. The Information Department had very little room to intervene from London while preparing for this operation. Although a fraction of her intelligence network had been redeployed from Korea to Japan to gather local intel, issuing real-time directives from London was practically impossible.
In truth, Lady Yerina and Pavel's trip to East Asia made Delis feel a profound sense of helplessness. While the two of them were fighting to expand the Syndicate's foundations, she was living in an entirely different timeline, spending most of her hours handling the affairs of the Ministry of Magic. Lady Yerina had indeed reassured her, saying, “Infiltrating the Ministry is something only you can do, Delis. You know that, right?” Yet, a sense of alienation was only natural. Knowing it was a self-indulgent worry, she kept it locked away in her mind, never letting it slip past her lips.
Still, contact from Japan would arrive soon. This would be her chance to prove her worth as the Information Chief to Lady Yerina and Pavel. At the same time, it would naturally distance her from that feeling of helplessness. It was only when she was actively dividing and managing the Syndicate's operations that she felt a sense of self-realization.
Early Monday morning in Japan. Sunday afternoon here in London. Delis Bloomfeld was taking a light nap in her office chair, waiting for the transmission. If she wanted to catch up on her chronic sleep deprivation, now was her only window. There was a minor drawback: every time she woke up from a doze, embarrassing memories of a certain incident that had occurred right here in this very office would flash through her mind. Shaking her head vigorously to dispel the thoughts, she focused on waiting for the data from the field.
“...It's here!”
An email with an attached video arrived via the secure line. The resolution was heavily degraded and the clip was short, but even through the blurry footage, she could clearly see that Pavel had performed exactly as expected. But then...
“Huh...?”
Just now, a rapid straight punch thrown by some random thug caught her eye. And at the receiving end of that punch was none other than Pavel. Despite the video being sped up and heavily pixelated, Delis widened her eyes and rewound the clip over and over. ...Not that doing so would magically improve the resolution.
A sudden wave of helplessness washed over her once more. But this time, it was accompanied by a faint, simmering anger. Who dared lay a hand on her newly found family? The realization that she could do absolutely nothing to help in that moment made her blood run hot.
To be fair, she had felt similar emotions whenever she received reports of other Syndicate members getting hurt. More specifically, during the operation to eliminate the remnants of the IRA traitors in Northern Ireland. The mages of the Equinox unit didn't always return unscathed. Though the intensity differed, she always felt a mix of helplessness and anger whenever any member of the organization came back wounded.
'It must be a good sign.'
It was proof that she truly felt a sense of belonging within the Northern Covenant Syndicate. Therefore, her distress had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the one who got hit was Pavel. It was simply because Pavel Nikolayevich Tsoy was a vital asset—the Syndicate's Security Chief. If the Security Chief were to be suddenly incapacitated, it could disrupt the grand trajectory of the organization's plans. As far as Delis Bloomfeld was concerned, there was no other reason.
Only after reading the text attached to the video was Delis able to calm her racing heart.
「The Security Chief fought valiantly and cleared out the small fry. All disruptors on-site, including an American mobster who managed to land the sole clean hit, have been cleanly dealt with.」
「His performance alone seems more than sufficient to leave a powerful impression on Acting Secretary-General Tokugawa Chiyoko.」
“Phew...”
What followed were details that required a moment of contemplation.
「Separately, we succeeded in seizing the firearms intended for the transaction.」
「Had they been ordinary firearms, we would have disposed of them accordingly, but they appear to be magical weapons crafted by the 'Arsenal of Democracy,' necessitating further discussion.」
“The Arsenal of Democracy...?”
She distinctly recalled Lady Yerina mentioning it once. Delis quickly opened an encrypted document that could only be accessed by the Syndicate's Five Pillars and their leader, Lady Yerina.
'It means we need to start keeping contact with the United States in mind.'
It wasn't entirely bad news. Delis read the remainder of the brief email.
「We will contact you again once the cleanup is complete and the secure line is ready for a call. Out.」
As always, it was a preliminary notice bearing good news. By now, they were likely back at their hotel, washing away their fatigue alongside their seized spoils. Delis decided to handle her end of the work in the meantime. She performed her routine checks, testing the secure satellite line a couple of times and scanning once more for any potential surveillance—unlikely as it was.
Before long, the secure line rang.
“It seems everything went according to plan. Congratulations.”
—“Oh, please. It's all because you laid the groundwork for our success, as always.”
It was their usual banter. Yet, for the first time, Delis couldn't help but feel she had fallen short.
“...No, it is my fault. My intelligence gathering was insufficient. I failed to foresee that Pavel would be injured, and that the firearms in the transaction were magical weapons.”
Even if the latter had turned out well in the end, a slight misstep could have derailed all their other plans. It could have put Lady Yerina and Pavel in grave danger on the field. Had the Syndicate remained ignorant of the magical weapons' true nature, they would have had to deal with the sudden attention of the United States without any preparation. Given how closely the US cooperated with Great Britain, the Syndicate's entire existence might have been exposed to the British Ministry of Magic.
However, the master of her soul seemed to be focused on something else entirely.
—“Huh? Wait, Pavel didn't get hurt...?”
“...Pardon?”
—“I am perfectly fine, Bloomfeld. It might have looked incredibly threatening in the video because it was sped up, but in reality, it was nothing.”
“...”
Ahem. In any case, the topic of conversation shifted to how they would utilize the seized firearms.
—“First of all, using them on the battlefield as intended doesn't seem right. They might be decent for pulling out of the shadows to fire off a quick shot, but they're hardly fit to be primary weapons for mages of my or Pavel's caliber, are they?”
As confirmed by the encrypted document, the magical weapons crafted by Maverick Hunt, the Arsenal of Democracy, were not exactly game-changers when evaluated individually. In fact, for weapons made by a top-tier mage under state management, they were rather mediocre. The true power of the Arsenal lay in its ability to mass-produce millions of them. Consequently, possessing just one or two was of little practical use.
“Indeed... a Deep Path Wizard would have no need for them, while our lower-ranking mages are too numerous to distribute such a limited quantity to. How do you plan to utilize them, then?”
She asked, though she already had a rough idea of the answer.
—“Well, using them as bait to lure in the Americans would be best.”
“We are of the same mind.”
—“I might not know everything going on in those Yankee minds, but they must hate communists at least as much as I do... if not more, right?”
Lady Yerina's reasoning aligned perfectly with her own. While the enemy of an enemy was not always a friend, they could certainly act as allies for Lady Yerina's plans to oppose the Soviet of Materialists. In that case, there was only one answer the leader of the Syndicate would want to hear.
“There is a department within the Ministry of Magic dedicated solely to cooperating with foreign magical organizations. We should focus our efforts there.”
—“Aha, I love how quickly you catch on. Let's think more deeply about how our American friends will react once I return.”
It was clear they could not employ the same winning strategy they had always used when dealing with the United States. That is to say... Lady Yerina quietly approaching the target, unleashing her overwhelming magical might, and severing the head of the target organization. The IRA was a prime example of an organization that had surrendered itself entirely to this method, followed by the traitorous faction in Marseille. But the American side was bound to be as massive as the British Ministry of Magic... if not more so. Even with a powerful insider like herself embedded within, the plan to bring the British Ministry to its knees was still fraught with difficulties. How much harder would it be against an even larger magical institution where they had no inside collaborator? Rather than the tyrannical path they had walked so far, a strategy of hiding their identity while hinting at potential cooperation would be far more effective.
My call with Delis went incredibly smoothly. I wasn't sure if her way of thinking was starting to resemble mine or if she had simply grown accustomed to my operational style, but she seemed to read my mind in real-time, offering solutions and strategies on the fly. The plan for utilizing the magical weapons seized at the docks would likely take shape soon.
—“Ah, and regarding the national relic in Hokkaido that you instructed me to look into last time...”
“Oh? You have results already?”
—“Think of it as an interim report. I had been digging through Ministry documents all this time, but a clue turned up in a completely unexpected place.”
The Hokkaido national relic Delis mentioned was the very same one I had proudly hinted to Acting Secretary-General Tokugawa Chiyoko that I would steal. Its name was Misoka. The name meant the dark moon, the opposite of a full moon. Unlike the full moon that shines brightly by reflecting sunlight, the dark moon is completely black and invisible. Similarly, the ability of the national relic Misoka, discovered in the snow-covered lands of Hokkaido, was to generate a magical field around itself that shielded against acoustic and electromagnetic waves.
In my previous life, it was a relic discovered right around the end of the World War. Undetectable by radar and other electronic equipment, they had to excavate the vast snowy plains relying solely on the testimonies of the indigenous Ainu people. Since its outward appearance was virtually indistinguishable from an ordinary boulder, the excavation took an incredibly long time. Logically speaking, who in their right mind would scour an entire snowy province just to find a buried rock? It was only natural that the excavation dragged on.
Unlike Spiegel, Misoka possessed such immense mass and volume that it had to be fixed in one place to be used. In terms of being a stationary relic, it belonged to a similar category as the Rosetta Stone. If the excavation had been attempted in an era with more advanced technology rather than this period, it might never have been found. As time went on, reliance on electronic equipment over human labor would only intensify. And as I said, no sane person would drag high-tech gear through the snowbanks based solely on indigenous folklore.
At any rate, the national relic was excavated around the end of the war. Because Misoka's abilities were not widely known at the time, the US military government didn't think much of it. Instead of confiscating the relic and bringing it back to their homeland, they handed it over to the newly formed Japanese government. The new Japanese government made highly efficient use of their newly acquired national relic. As its ability to shield acoustic and electromagnetic waves suggested, the most effective way to utilize Misoka would have been to mount it on a stealth bomber to glide silently through enemy airspace. However, due to its weight, the next best option was chosen: a submarine. Although it lacked SLBMs, a single Maritime Self-Defense Force submarine that could not be detected by sonar roaming the world's oceans as if it owned them was more than enough to pose a significant threat to any potential adversary.