As You Can See, Mr. Protagonist
Is the crack in the ceiling... stable? Reports from my subordinates were being compiled and sent up to me in real-time through the communicator.
Among them was a report stating that even though the central dome had collapsed, the structural integrity of the remaining ceiling was likely not severely compromised. At the very least, there was no immediate danger of further collapse. It was certainly welcome news that one nagging concern had been crossed off the list.
I had long since abandoned the tactic of hiding my presence among my subordinates. Which meant that in the eyes of Benjamin Ashford, I would appear as the most brilliantly shining soul.
The Vice-Minister of Magic glared with both eyes wide and demanded, "Did you make this mess, you bitch?"
The shout of the young head of the Ashford family sounded like a dramatic monologue from a play. It felt as if he believed he was standing entirely alone on a grand stage. Moonlight poured down like a beam of light from the gaping hole in the ceiling, illuminating his blood-stained blonde hair like a spotlight.
"My, I hope I haven't intruded upon Romeo and Juliet, Mr. Protagonist?"
Standing under the moonlight, completely absorbed in his own drama, he must truly feel like the main character. Exercising my profound capacity for empathy to look at things from his perspective, he had probably never lived any other way. He had always been the protagonist of his own life. Everyone else was merely an NPC to interact with.
"There is no need to ask further. You are that Syndicate organization, aren't you?"
At least he was capable of identifying the culprit. Then again, if he couldn't deduce even this much, he would be no better than a beast.
I muttered, maintaining my usual calm composure. "Sigh, this makes my subordinate's hard work completely pointless. How troublesome."
It was indeed troublesome. The price Delis Bloomfeld had paid by acting with such decisiveness had gone to waste. I thought I would be fighting an enemy with half his vision gone, but new flesh had already grown back. To think he possessed a level of regenerative power unheard of in both my past and present lives.
"I heard rumors of parasites nesting in the back alleys of the Empire, and it seems you are their queen."
"Hmm, I thought you said there was no need to ask further? Is your brain not working well enough to trust your own deduction, so you're begging me to confirm it for you?"
The art of using magic to regenerate a specific body part by a precise amount was incredibly rare. Pinpointing the exact area to amplify natural healing and controlling it to just the right degree was by no means an easy feat.
It's a perfect way to die of cancer.
Flesh growing back far faster than normal meant accelerated cell division, and uncontrolled cell division was essentially cancer. If a regenerative ability tens of thousands of times faster than normal went out of control, it would be nothing short of a disaster. Therefore, he couldn't have achieved this feat out of thin air. It shattered all the magical common sense I possessed. Perhaps this was a weakness I could exploit.
I delivered my response to the pathetic man who had dumped all his stats into physical ability and magic power while completely neglecting his intelligence. Not with words, but with action.
First, the slithering shadow beast crept toward the two noble gentlemen lying face down on the floor. A portion of my soul resided within the shadow beast, Schattenmaiden, meaning that to a mage's eyes, the extension of the shadow was accompanied by the expansion of my soul. Naturally, to my opponent, it was a highly suspicious movement.
Benjamin Ashford demanded, "What are you doing?"
Schattenmaiden, slithering across the floor, sharpened its shadow into a razor-thin blade. And then—
Thud.
—it plunged straight into the lungs of the two unsuspecting ball guests.
The two civilians died with wet, rattling gasps. It was a truly fleeting death; they couldn't offer a single shred of resistance, nor would they ever know what killed them.
Between their two fading, feeble souls, the tip of the shadow beast that had pierced their chests elongated, and a mouth sprouted at its end. Soon, a pitch-black tongue slipped from the mouth, greedily licking up the fresh blood bathed in the moonlight.
A sinister smile suited the scent of blood. Smiling, I answered him this time with words as well as actions.
"As you can see, Mr. Protagonist."
An obsession with saving everyone? This man had no such thing to begin with. After all, he was the most precious person in his own eyes. No one in the world could ever be more important than himself.
Yet, even a man like him was bound to have a conscience. Perhaps not someone like me, whose moral compass had long since eroded into dust, but a man who firmly believed without a shadow of a doubt that he was on the side of justice simply had to have one.
I absolutely adored that petty sense of justice and pride. It was the exact mindset always carried by the flies that died without ever realizing their place. Our dear Mr. Protagonist was likely no different.
In that regard, killing the civilian hostages was more than enough to gently stoke the anger of the Ashford family's young head. I couldn't care less about the aftermath. If I won today's battle, the deaths of a couple of nobles would be easy enough for me to cover up. And if I lost...
Well, is there any point in thinking about that?
My opponent's reaction did not stray far from my expectations.
"...?" He merely stared at me with wide, disbelieving eyes, utterly unable to comprehend what had just happened.
"Ahahaha! Aren't you the second-highest official in the Ministry of Magic? You should at least know that the Syndicate is more than willing to do whatever it takes to achieve its goals."
"You... how dare you...!" His face, twisted with rage, was quite a sight to behold. I suppose it was that handsome face of his that had women lining up to spread their legs for him.
"Weren't the people here all your guests?"
"..."
Saying this, I slightly tilted my head and shifted my gaze to Delis, who was still standing by my side. "Including this woman."
He had no idea that Delis was my subordinate. In that case, now was the perfect moment to lure the prey out into the open. I whispered my declaration to Benjamin, whose face was now flickering with panic, a stark contrast to his previous arrogance. "Try and save her. If you have the power, that is."
Delis and I had coordinated this beforehand. I had told her to run toward him in a panic the moment I gave the signal. If all his attention was focused on Delis, the window of opportunity for me to launch a free attack would widen significantly. It was an exquisite opportunity for me.
Whoosh! Delis began to move away on cue. Instead of running in a straight line toward Benjamin, she zigzagged diagonally. To deceive a high-level mage, a half-hearted trick would never suffice. I extended Schattenmaiden toward Delis with genuine lethal intent, and she barely evaded the shadow's grasp by mere inches each time.
This was made possible by the danger-detection capabilities of the Improved Rosetta Stone. The Improved Rosetta Stone could not distinguish friend from foe. If it could, how would my security chief, Pavel, have dodged when I suddenly fired bullets at him to test the national relic for the first time? Thus, even when I lunged Schattenmaiden at Delis, the British national relic dutifully activated its inherent power.
Of course, even the Improved Rosetta Stone was not omnipotent, so I had no choice but to inflict a few minor scratches on Delis. The shadow beast grazed non-lethal areas like her thighs and forearms. I would certainly have to apply some ointment for her later, but this was more than enough to sell the illusion.
Taking advantage of his distraction with Delis, I took aim at Benjamin's left eye as a test and fired a magic bullet.
Tsk. Despite the ferocious power behind the shot, the magic bullet burst uselessly before even getting close to the target. As if its fuse had been triggered prematurely, the magic shaped charge shell detonated harmlessly in midair.
A standoff at a distance of twenty to thirty meters. I took a spare pistol from one of my subordinates and began to gradually close the gap. While Schattenmaiden appeared to be specialized for long-range attacks at first glance, the truth was that it couldn't extend very far. Extending it over a long distance wasn't impossible, but what if the opponent targeted the stretched shadow tendril directly?
Since I was already stoking the Vice-Minister's rage and gradually turning the situation to my advantage, there was absolutely no need to take unnecessary gambles.
"You are an even crazier bitch than I thought. How dare you kill my guests?"
"Oh, please... did you ever really think of them as guests? Weren't they just extras brought in to decorate the stage for your pathetic marriage proposal?"
A protagonist always needs an audience. Such was the case for this late-twentieth-century reenactment of Romeo and Juliet. Ultimately, it was all to make himself shine, but the story of this protagonist was about to meet a miserable end at the hands of an antagonist young lady like me.
As I chuckled, feigning nonchalance, a look of sudden realization washed over Benjamin's face.
"Now I see... you're that bitch. I thought you were just an ordinary grunt, but I knew you were far too powerful for that."
"...What are you talking about?"
"I can't say it's a pleasure to meet you. The second leader of the Northern Covenant Syndicate, the traitor who turned her back on Moscow to cling to London—Yerina Bronska."
...I hadn't expected to hear my real name in a place like this. Frowning, a sudden realization struck me. I recalled the intelligence brought to me by my very helpful American friend, with whom I shared a purely transactional relationship.
"Ah... I see now. You're the Trojan Horse, aren't you?"
Good grief. To think I would reach the climax of this story and gain such enlightenment in a tense situation like this. The high-level Trojan Horse within the British government was this idiot?
"Ha! Just figured it out? I guess the intelligence of your organization, which has been playing those Russian bastards for fools, isn't always perfect."
"You're called a Trojan Horse, but it seems you aren't just a mindless Soviet lackey."
"Who would bow and scrape to those bastards? They were merely a means to acquire power."
I had gained an immense amount of information from that brief exchange. First, the supreme leader of the Trojan Horse network I had been searching for was this very bastard. Second, rather than being a spy who blindly followed Soviet orders, he was highly likely a mere local collaborator.
At this point, I wondered why he hadn't informed the Ministry of Magic that the leader of the Syndicate was Yerina Bronska, rather than Irene Lonska or Irene Varez.
But the thought quickly slipped from my mind. Whatever the reason, it wasn't important right now. As I had said, I could confirm it after I won. There was no need to contemplate losing.
A brief breath. And the third thing I had gained:
"Regardless of all that, the fact that I must defeat you remains—" At that exact moment, I kicked off the ground and lunged forward. "—unchanged!"
I used my shadow beast to snatch a massive chunk of the marble dome rolling on the floor. It was a piece large enough to completely cover my entire torso. Even though this single fragment easily weighed several tons, as long as the intangible shadow beast exerted physical force, my charge would not be slowed by inertia.
*Boom!* The marble fragment I held in front of me with Schattenmaiden to shield my body was instantly pulverized from within, exploding outward. A split second later, magical residue rippled through the air. A powerful telekinetic force had completely reduced the interior of the stone to mush.
I read... every single move...! Listening with the ears of my soul to the warning of the Improved Rosetta Stone, I dodged all the flying debris while swiftly extending a low-lying shadow.
A long, thin shadow stretched across the ballroom floor. At its very tip, a mouth split wide open, and the metallic sheen of Paramita gleamed as it caught the silver moonlight.