Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum (3)
The time flew by while sharing all kinds of information with the Americans in the hotel in Miami, Florida.
To be more precise… it wasn’t really sharing. It was simply a continuous process of exchanging glances and weighing whether to lay down a card or not, checking each other with great caution.
As long as the other party played one card, we had to play one in return. That was the principle of give and take, and the unspoken law that governed this world without room for trust.
Along the way, a number of dangerous situations had arisen.
Most of the classified information exchanges had been conducted through documents, but there were occasional times when additional explanations were needed.
After doing this for a few weeks, one might forget exactly what information had been passed and which had not.
For that reason, I almost blurted out that I had simply swallowed England whole without thinking.
I had casually mentioned matters that required coordination with the British imperial administration as if I had full authority.
Thanks to that, I ended up under suspicion even though I didn’t need to receive anything. I had barely managed to smooth it over and prevent further probing.
After the long assignment finally ended and we returned to the hotel, we found a red alert flashing on the organization’s internal intranet — an amusing coincidence that the assignment location and the hotel were the same.
Checking it revealed that the new collaborator we had approved had swept through one of the Syndicate’s most secret facilities.
New collaborator or not, looking at the abilities she possessed, she was someone the organization should have treated with the best possible conditions.
In truth, I had already been aware of this. I had simply been told that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, and that I should prepare a detailed report and submit it to me.
Days had passed since that day, and the report now submitted contained facts that were almost identical to what I had expected.
“The Syndicate collaborator ‘Elze Constanze’ has visited the monastery in Southend under surveillance and toured the ‘factory’.”
“After the visit, the innermost research lab line confirmed the ‘cultured slime’ with their own eyes and received explanations regarding the commercialization process.”
“The process of separating the cultured mass, grafting souls onto each separated slime, and finally bestowing magic onto each soul-body.”
“While observing the collaborator during the tour, no notable anomalies were detected. The collaborator only asked questions within the bounds of common sense.”
This report listed, in a long string of text, the questions Elze had asked at the underground monastery in Southend-on-Sea.
A quick scan revealed the usual questions that the report described. I was glad to have personally confirmed the human factory I had prepared with my own efforts.
Since I took England into my hands, I had been steadily remodeling the monastery in Southend to my liking over the past couple of months.
Ever since I resolved to wage a holy crusade against communism, that monastery had retained a certain importance to me.
From the early days when the organization had just begun to establish itself in London, the place had been the most favored for disposing of people without leaving traces.
Of course, there were also incidents where we had seized and torn apart victims in some back alley of London, but the fact remained that places like the Cambridge Five or Norton Harris of the British Magic Department had been handled at that very monastery.
I had decided to dedicate this monumental first site to the organization.
More precisely, to buy up all the land in the vicinity, gradually introduce residents, and then build a complex research facility spanning above and below ground.
The first one was the factory and research lab for the cultured slime made from Benjamin Ashford’s flesh and the research needed for it.
All administrative procedures could be bypassed. Since my authority was soon to become state power, why would such things be necessary?
In rare cases, when dealing with matters that even state power couldn’t resolve, I could simply use the Charm to make things much easier.
Even if there was a system I found difficult to infiltrate, the final decision-makers were always nothing but humans.
Thus, it was reported that during my time in Hong Kong, the daily production of cultured slime at the monastery human factory had already reached 120 kg.
This referred not to mere magic golems, but to those that could combine and separate among themselves, utilize basic magic such as telekinesis, and generate artificial eyes on their surfaces to perceive external conditions and act autonomously.
In other words, it meant that the cultured substance could be used purely for physical purposes, and it was abundant.
What made it all the more amusing was that, thanks to the enormous regenerative power inherent in the original, they maintained stability with only minimal nutritional supply.
At the moment, the flesh was difficult to dispose of, but perhaps these could also find ways to be utilized.
It had been a correct choice to quickly acquire the military facility at Porton Down, where the British Army had already been using it enthusiastically.
Magic was not always superior to the physical things of the world.
Sometimes, overwhelming physical force could tear magic apart.
What if a mere mage exploded a nuclear bomb right in front of their eyes? They would obviously die.
The British Army’s military facility at Porton Down was a research institute that had studied chemical and biological weapons since the early twentieth century.
The various research materials and personnel accumulated here would one day prove helpful in the battles I was about to wage against the Soviet communists — never harmful.
They would participate in the eradication of communists with high enthusiasm, provided they were given the signal that research would be used to handle them.
It seemed this thought was not limited to me. Through Delis, I learned that the existing British Magic Department had already established a cooperative relationship with Porton Down.
I had received these unexpected gifts and, through the Charm, had bewitched them and, through baptism and enslavement making them serve me as masters of their souls, turned them into the organization’s puppets.
Their main goal was to ponder how to make the existing chemical and biological weapons even stronger by incorporating magic.
If you want to deceive the world and deceive everyone, you should not think of war itself. Like the Allied leaders of the previous war, one had to consider the aftermath even after the war ended.
I was no different. I wanted a future in which I and my people could live peacefully.
Therefore, to achieve that peace, one had to paradoxically prepare for war itself.
The war weapons made for the decisive battle in Moscow would be useful not only before or after, but at any time.
Since I now sat at the very top of the Porton Down military research team’s heads, their troubles would soon be resolved.
When I returned to London, I would have to think carefully.
On the other hand, I recalled the conversations with the Americans over the past few days.
I had delivered the story of the Baramil with perfect fluency, mixing in such pure truth that no one could detect any distortion, and as a result, the Americans’ trust in the organization had risen considerably.
When combined with the intelligence I had separately obtained through Delis and the organization’s Information Department, it seemed the Americans had decided to entrust at least some of the intelligence on the British side to our organization.
That did not mean the British Magic Department’s connections with the US Magic Defense Bureau had been severed — it simply hadn’t changed anything.
The British Magic Department was, after all, nothing more than a subordinate agency of the organization.
The Americans, not knowing this, would see that most of the intelligence the Americans were conducting on the British side was now under our surveillance.
Moreover, there was no need for us to rush. The more hasty one was, the higher the chance of detection.
We would simply nibble away at the existing pie held by the British Magic Department, without arousing suspicion, slowly but steadily.
Establishing close cooperation with the Americans would be the final step in this.
There were also national-level business connections, but this one would probably require us to put forward the British government rather than myself, since it was external.
In truth, it was still the same, but we did need to consider the external gaze.
Thus, it seemed this trip to America would likely be the last for this week.
“Oh, by the way, Varez, there’s one person who wants to meet you.”
Mid-April. The time when we both knew this would probably be the last time we looked at each other like this. Matthew Wyatt Lewis — W — had said this to me abruptly.
“There’s one person who wants to meet you.”
“A Magic Defense Bureau person?”
“I suppose it would be best to say so.”
“Well… is that so?”
I tilted my head at the somewhat vague and unsettled expression that seemed neither confirmed nor denied. If she was with them, she was with them; otherwise, she wasn’t.
Well, thinking about it again, it might not be so neatly divided.
Just as with the witch named Elze Constanze, answering whether she was purely a Syndicate member would be difficult, after all.
“To be more precise… she herself isn’t, but her father is a person in the Magic Defense Bureau. She’s also a mage, so she could enter anytime, but she’s only been in a cooperative relationship so far.”
“Hmm, I see.”
A certain interest stirred in me. What kind of human was this, that the American mage would turn down the shortcut of the Magic Defense Bureau?
W had brought up a map on his tablet.
“The workshop’s location is here. It’s not too far. After hearing the story about Varez over there, he said he wanted to meet once and flew to Florida.”
Crafthouse. W had expressed the location of the person waiting for me with a word that was not in advance English.
It was not an incomprehensible expression, however. It was clear that it meant something was being crafted step by step.
I did not ask further and simply estimated the distance.
“About sixty kilometers. Considering the size of this country, that would be close enough.”
In America, it would be next-door if it was a distance that could be reached by car in less than an hour.
“So, are you going to meet him?”
“There’s no reason not to. Only, I’ll bring my own vehicle instead of being ferried by the Magic Defense Bureau.”
“That’s fine. Providing a vehicle here would be a good way to avoid misunderstandings.”
As someone born into that world, he immediately understood why I would move on my own.
Neither of us had any reason to search under the car for listening devices or to blush. Following us was something we could tolerate.
Suddenly, Pavel and Delis had accompanied the meeting that had been arranged so abruptly.
Pavel’s face had not been revealed, so there had been no issue showing it to the Americans, but Delis, who was clearly a member of the British Magic Department, would cause problems if she appeared openly.
I had replaced it with the recognition-inhibiting magic I had acquired from a North Korean communist in Seoul’s Namyang-dong.
One way mages identified people was by confirming soul identity, but there was no need to worry about this with recognition-inhibiting magic that only slightly altered outward appearance.
Even if I had brought a highly skilled mage to observe Delis with their eyes, trying to determine whether she was the same as an existing soul, she had never appeared directly in front of the Americans as ‘Delis Blumpelt,’ chief secretary to the Minister of the British Magic Department.
Without a control group, no matter how good the mage’s vision, it would have been meaningless.
Thus, after driving for about an hour, we arrived at a rural area in some part of Florida.
It was not deep inland, and the sea was still lapping at the shore.
Anyone trying to hide would know the real estate prices in the area were high.
There were many houses nearby, but there were no signs of habitation, suggesting that perhaps the owner of this ‘crafthouse’ had bought all the real estate around here.
Arriving at the address we had been given, Pavel, and Delis, we stepped out of the vehicle one by one.
“Is this the place? It looks like just another ordinary American suburban middle-class housing area from the outside, with a somewhat large garage.”
Pavel’s question. I shrugged my shoulders in reply.
“There’s no law against building a villa in such a place. After all, our Magic Department isn’t even in Greenwich, which is just a normal housing complex?”
“That makes sense.”
As we approached the garage, the door opened automatically as if waiting for us. The interior was just as spacious as it looked from the outside.
Yet there was no presence felt. The scent of people only began to appear further inside.
“Hmph… more trouble again… Hey, can! Why is this?”
“It is assumed that the magic injected has exceeded the limit that can be endured. The owner keeps saying the same thing, but the owner is too stubborn.”
“You don’t know anything! If it were calculated right, it should have been able to endure!”
“Then the calculation must be wrong. My calculation is more accurate than the owner’s.”
“You can!”
This was some kind of conversation.
Inside the large garage, a white woman and a robot-like thing that reached her waist were standing side by side.
The woman side might have been better called a girl, and the robot side might have been better called an unmanned turret.
In front of them lay a pile of gray smoke-filled metal debris. It seemed an explosion had occurred.
Beyond that, the girl or woman noticed us. With an “oh?” she waved at us.
“Ah, you’re here! This way!”
From any viewpoint, she gave the impression of someone with a lively personality. The light outfit she wore, the healthy, vigorous figure…
The gaze toward her short hair with blonde highlights naturally lingered around the chest. Truly… it was at a violent level of size.
When I turned my head, Delis was glaring at Pavel with eyes that anyone would interpret as protective, her arms tightly interlocked with his.