14. Melting Point (4)
14. Melting Point (4)
When he'd received that order, the butler had replied.
"Does this mean you've finally sorted out your feelings?"
"Huh? Troupe Leader Wonderstein? Well, I... it's just... There are too many important matters at hand. Can't afford to dwell on trivialities."
"'Trivialities,' you say... See? I—"
"Don't you start with 'What did I tell you?' Either way, I went so far as to confess!"
"Are you giving up, then?"
"Nothing to be done since it didn't work out. I think I was clumsy with relationships to begin with. I wanted to give my heart to someone too quickly, probably because of what happened with my uncle..."
With that, Anais turned a dissatisfied gaze out the airship window. But a thought seemed to strike her, and she turned back to the butler.
"Why were you so averse to Troupe Leader Wonderstein, anyway?"
"Averse? I merely told you I suspected it wouldn't go well."
"Why? Because of status?"
"Hm, that was part of it, but it was the impression he gave off."
"His impression?"
Bartel paused to organize his thoughts before answering.
"I thought he resembled you, my lady."
"What? The Troupe Leader and me? In what way?"
"I had the sense that both of you look down upon the world from a slight remove. Like the way you often look down at a game board, My Lady..."
"I'm the head of a trading company, and he's a magician preparing his stage."
At Anais's straightforward explanation, the butler nodded.
"Yes. One could certainly see it that way. Yet, even so, I felt as though you both engaged with the world from behind a pane of glass."
"Ah, isn't that the analogy my grandfather always used to make about me?"
"You spent many years confined to the manor, my lady, and often communicated with the world through letters and ledgers. That you developed such a quality is hardly strange. But for a man who's wandered the world since childhood to share that trait... perhaps his heart bore a great many wounds as well?"
"Who knows. Maybe he was shut up at home like me, playing games and exchanging information with the whole world?"
"Haha, surely not."
"I'm just saying, logically it's possible. So why does that even become a problem? You said we were similar types?"
"Some people, like you, My Lady, feel drawn to kindred spirits, while others feel uneasy around them. The Troupe Leader seemed to recoil because your actions reminded him of himself."
Anais regretted asking. In the end, it was just more of the old man's rambling, where he occasionally muddled together something resembling life wisdom or insight out of disjointed logic.
"Do you recall the conversation we shared on the airship?"
"Yes. I thought you were jumping to conclusions again."
"Truly? Honestly, I was perfectly sincere—no, never mind. That's not what matters now. At any rate, when you boarded the airship, you were wrestling with doubts, my lady. Had you rushed at a man and declared your affection like some naive child, ignorant of the world? Had you spoken so easily of love without considering the practical circumstances or the difference in station...?"
"I never quite laid my heart bare like that. Jumping to conclusions again, are we?"
"But it's accurate, isn't it?"
"Hmph. Fine. Yes. So what about it?"
Bartel let his playful expression subside and replied in a serious voice.
"After returning to the company, I posed a similar question to the woman who has taken your place. But she gave an entirely different answer. She said she still liked Troupe Leader Wonderstein, and that she would wait for his answer."
"And what's so strange about that? I spoke with my grandfather aboard the airship. Yet the doppelganger began its replication just before I boarded..."
"No. Your doubts had begun forming toward the very end of that journey. Yet no matter how hard I looked, I could not find a single trace of such doubts within her heart. This is where I must conjecture: I believe the doppelganger copies all memories up to a specific point, and then immediately acts upon the 'command' imprinted by its creator as its primary motive. In other words, any floating 'thoughts' or 'doubts' that had not yet firmly taken root in memory at that moment were not duplicated; they were overwritten by the command and vanished."
The clue the butler offered was small, but it was a definite point to prod at. It was a subtle dissonance only he could detect after having shadowed her for so long, the insight of a man who had managed a household with meticulous precision for decades.
Of course, it was a rationale only he could fully grasp—not enough to convince anyone else. But it was enough.
"...Thank you."
Anais felt grateful. However small, it didn't matter. He had thrown her a thread of hope worth clinging to.
"You aren't calling it baseless conjecture this time."
"Ah... I suppose not. Faith doesn't seem to require much probability."
Bartel smiled at her, but privately swallowed one lingering unease he could not bring himself to voice. As she'd noted, perhaps his decades of service had given him a habit of never letting even the smallest loose thread go unexamined.
According to the documents the fake Anais had shown him, the Voodoo Cult had clearly been preparing this plan for a long time. The order from the figure called the Cult Leader to analyze Anais Bergson's body had been issued three years ago. That aligned with the period when the Voodoo Cult first extended its reach toward Pierre. And it came directly after Anais's father, Jeral Bergson, had died in an "accident." The timing was exquisite. Perhaps... perhaps her father hadn't died in an accident at all, but at their hands.
"Ah, right. It's dinner distribution time. I'll go eat in the mess hall."
Anais dusted off her waitress apron as she stood, then tilted her head when she noticed his grim expression.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I was only thinking... if a maid like you, My Lady, had ever worked in our manor, I'd have had her packed and out the door at once."
"Ah, yes, yes. I do apologize. Just a pampered noble heiress, me."
Bartel pursed his lips slightly, then smiled as he watched his mistress dash out. No. Sharing such matters with her was still premature.
Exiting the boiler room, Anais ran into Carlson coming in. Known around here as "the old exfoliation man," he was a comrade-in-arms from the butler's soldiering days. It was thanks entirely to his consideration that they'd been able to hide here.
"Off work?"
He regarded her with indifferent eyes, then spoke.
"You've been crying."
"Pardon? Ah, ahaha, a little..."
"Good. Your expression's improved since yesterday."
"H-how did I look before?"
"So anguished it spoiled my drink just watching. I was half ready to throw you out if it continued today."
He tossed out the words flatly and stared at her. It seemed a gesture to move aside. Anais gave him a quick bow and headed toward the mess hall. Many employees were heading the same way; staff mealtime must have just begun.
"Hey, Anya! You're on meal duty today! Where have you been wandering off to?"
"Aah! W-was I?"
At the scolding from Somo, who ran the kitchen, Anais flustered and scurried toward her.
Watching her from the shadows of the mountain was another figure. He wore a hood and hid in the darkness, smirking as he watched Anais bowing profusely to the kitchen's Somo.
"Found you. Who'd have thought you'd be in a place like this."
He briefly considered infiltrating and simply abducting her right now. One mere woman. A simple job.
But he immediately withdrew the thought when he sensed a sharp gaze aimed his way. Standing in front of the boiler room with a towel slung around his neck, the old man radiated the air of a seasoned soldier, his eyes sharp with vigilance. The intruder was a Madosa specialized in reconnaissance, not combat.
"Fall back for now and call in a support squad."
The Madosa of the Voodoo Cult muttered to himself and rose from the shadows. But before he could take a few steps, something massive descended from the trees above and fell upon him.
"Grugh!"
A beast's growl. Sharp claws flashed in the moonlight. Before the Madosa could even register the thing's presence, he felt the world spin. His head toppled from his body and rolled across the ground.
"Seems there's a 'beast' about."
Watching the distant, shifting forest, Carlson murmured to himself and stepped back into the boiler room. The one who'd been watching Anais was eliminated. He felt a flicker of curiosity about who—or what—had killed him but didn't bother to investigate. He'd sensed no hostility from that direction.
"Anya, two sacks of potatoes to the kitchen!"
"Yes! On it!"
The green-haired employee dashed breathlessly between the storeroom and the kitchen. She was under the care of a friend of his—while he'd keep an eye out when the opportunity arose, actively gathering intelligence fell outside his operational scope.
"Grrr, good."
The beast who had just ambushed and killed the Madosa rose to its feet. From its mouth, astonishingly, flowed fluent human speech. It had bided its time for the perfect opening and struck, determined to leave no chance the Madosa might slip away. It could not under any circumstances allow the Voodoo Cult to learn of its existence. Officially, it was listed as having died after being dispatched on a special raid to Wonderland.
He'd gone to Wonderland reluctantly, on the Vice Cult Leader's orders, and there he'd met the Cult Leader. He'd been a dead man walking. But that person had saved his life. And then bestowed a mission.
'It seems my subordinates have been keeping themselves entertained with some interesting projects in my absence.'
'Th-that's correct.'
'Some of them don't sit well with me.'
'W-what should I do?'
'Judge and act as you see fit. Only, when we next meet, I expect you to bring me a gift.'
Of the unauthorized schemes the officers had launched, the one most displeasing to the Cult Leader was surely the replacement of Viscountess Bergson with a doppelganger. That had never been part of the original cult plan. He'd heard through the woman's close aides that the Vice Cult Leader had spitefully targeted her simply because the viscountess seemed to have caught the Cult Leader's attention.
"Now, all that remains is bringing her to the Cult Leader... No, evading enemy surveillance on my own seems unfeasible. No point in overreaching. I'd better just bring the Cult Leader here instead. At any rate, the gift for them is ready!"
Ben Sullivan, who styled himself as Wonderstein's most trusted henchman, wiped the blood from his lips as he gazed down at Anais entering the mess hall, and straightened himself.