Conversation - 5
They reached the Imperial Capital late in the evening.
How many times had he roughly filled his stomach with inn-bought bread along the way, only to pour starlight back into himself and press on? The month of diligent physical training felt almost pointless now — half a day of travel and his stamina was already starting to flag.
Only after the sun had slipped past the ridgeline and the world around them was slowly darkening did they finally arrive.
Despite word that the Hero and his party were coming, the capital was eerily quiet. The Emperor, it seemed, had told no one — for their own convenience, or so the Hero guessed.
He parked the carriage in a suitable corner and handed a few coins to a man who looked like a caretaker, asking him to watch it. When the Hero also showed him the seal, the man bowed and scraped and agreed at once to keep it safe.
He lingered a moment, peering at the curious carriage that had neither horse nor coachman — but before he could look inside, the Hero fixed him with a searing glare. The man apologized, ducked his head, and vanished into the building.
Curiosity kills the cat.
Kill the curiosity instead, and you keep your life.
That was the iron rule of an innkeeper whose establishment sat near the back alleys of a capital at war.
None of them particularly wanted to fight their way through thronging crowds, so the Hero cast a simple spell he had learned long ago over the party. It was work a mage ought to have handled — but until they found one, this would have to do.
If only Akan or Lloyd had joined his party. A party without a mage was a genuine inconvenience.
Should I put up a recruitment notice?
He considered it, then discarded the thought. Unaffiliated mages who answered a public posting were unlikely to be anything special. Most of those belonging to the Tower of Magic were lunatics who had devoted their entire lives to research; cooperation would not come easily. In practice, the majority of mages active on the front lines had no affiliation at all — and even those who claimed ties to the Tower or the adventurers' guilds mostly treated the battlefield as a source of research funding or a proving ground for their theories.
The Hero wondered whether he could track down the mage he had once recruited. Maybe I should just throw money at the Merchants' Guild — bribe that gold-worshipping bastard. Even now, no good answer presented itself. There was nothing for it.
He drew out the black mask the Emperor had been forced to hand over — the one enchanted with recognition inhibition — and crushed it to powder.
Crunch—
Something cracked. The mask shattered, dissolving into a fine black dust that tried to scatter on the air. He gathered the drifting particles — circuits and magic still riding them — and sprinkled some over himself, carefully cupping the rest in one hand.
Inside the carriage, Spring and the Saintess were still asleep. Jerome had already climbed down; he must have gotten out not long after the Hero left the carriage in the caretaker's hands.
The Hero spoke to him.
"Sprinkle this evenly over your head."
"It's powder that grants recognition inhibition."
Jerome answered,
"Ah — yes, sir."
His clumsy attempt at receiving a pinch of powder and dusting it over his own hair like seasoning looked faintly ridiculous, but the Hero gave no sign of noticing.
He climbed straight into the carriage and shook the two of them awake.
The Saintess looked as though she had only been dozing lightly. She rose in a soft, unguarded flurry — yet the white eyes that held starlight remained clear and sharp.
—Have we arrived?—
The beautiful voice still ringing inside his head never quite became familiar, but the Hero answered calmly, steadily.
"Yes."
—Thank you.—
"Sprinkle this."
"Over your head — evenly."
—What is it?—
"Powder that grants recognition inhibition."
—Ah. All right. Thank you.—
The Saintess scooped a handful of the black powder from his palm and scattered it over her own head. Dark dust settled into white hair. She tried to picture how she must look, decided the colors clashed, and felt a small, irrational prick of displeasure.
An unstable mind. Oscillating emotions. A heart in confusion. Everything was new to her. Do I want the Hero to think well of me? The question rose, and she crushed it hard, then stepped down from the carriage.
Once he was sure she was out, the Hero shook Spring awake with a rough, side-to-side violence that had nothing in common with the kindness he had shown the Saintess — irritation plain in every motion. If she had not opened her eyes at once, he might well have slapped her across the face, pouring old grudges into the blow. She was his enemy's officer, a personal nemesis whose sins no method of atonement could ever erase.
Spring opened her eyes and asked,
"What?"
Still that insolent tone, as if she had never grasped the hierarchy between them.
The Hero still did not understand why the Saintess had chosen to keep Spring alive. Given that Spring had told him about the dual personality, it seemed the Saintess's mind had taken the reins again. The first time she had interfered with his thoughts — during the assault on the capital — she had said nothing of the sort. That made it certain.
Why didn't the Saintess tell me herself?
No. Don't start doubting.
"What? You wake somebody up and then just stand there — what do you want?"
Somebody. So she still called herself a person.
Tch. Fine.
He had learned that further anger only wounded his own feelings. The Hero killed the emotion and stated his business flatly.
"We've arrived."
"It would be a problem if anyone saw you. Sprinkle this powder."
Spring was silent a beat, then snatchingly grabbed the powder and flung it over her head in a careless whoosh. The Hero wanted to comment, but said nothing. He simply took hold of the leather cord around her neck and let a faint thread of starlight flow through it.
Spring endured the stinging sensation, but she could not hide the pain. Those born strong never learn what pain is. Unfamiliar with it, they cannot conceal it.
A nasty little hobby of his.
Spring's eyes snapped open, sharp with fury, and she glared at him — but there was nothing she could do. The Hero dragged her down from the carriage just like that, took the lead of the party, and set out for the heart of the capital: the palace where the Emperor resided.
The place where the Emperor stayed was always the same: his office, set at the highest point of everything. Suspended on threads that seemed to stretch on without end, endlessly moving a body reduced to nothing but bone — the third-strongest Superhuman in the Empire. That was the title that named him.
When the nobles were summoned, he used the central hall. Lately it had been used only once, and even that only because the aristocracy had clamored to see the Hero with their own eyes.
Creatures who had never once raised their voices against him, who had lived bowed and silent, had grown loud the moment the Hero and the Saintess entered the Empire. Perhaps it was the old legends. The first Saintess — the one he had seen as a child — and her companions had been true heroes without question.
And they had killed the Emperor.
The last dragon of the Empire had lost its wings and fallen.
He had seen them that day.
But he did not resent them. His father had never been fit for a king's vessel. If one man's death could buy ordinary lives for countless humans, he would have given it gladly—
And so he had striven to become a true king: grinding his flesh away until he reached Superhuman status, transcending lifespan itself, working only for his people. That was what he had become.
Everything of the past had been recorded in the vast library of the desert and in the Great Archives of the Imperial Palace. Certain nobles could access those records. The desert library might be blocked by some unknown examiner, but the palace was another matter. Believing those old tales long since buried in sand, they clearly nursed the empty fantasy that the Hero might shatter the Emperor's absolute power.
The Emperor had considered how long it would take to fill their seats if he simply cut their heads and dropped them in the dirt — and for that reason alone, he had not dealt with them yet. But once the Demon King's head hit the floor, theirs would follow soon enough.
And then — creak—
The door to his office opened.
The Emperor faintly registered four humans wrapped in black mist, and at once recognized it as a crude circuit fashioned from one of the pieces of equipment the Hero had demanded.
"What is it?"
"Your manners are lacking."
With that, the Emperor flicked a finger and stripped the circuits away entirely. The black mist scattered in every direction, revealing their faces.
"My apologies."
"We've come because there is something we require."
Since the Hero's appearance, the Emperor had found himself unsettled more often than he cared to admit. He had ordered the man to bring him one of the Disasters — and now the Hero was making demands of his own?
Had it been anyone else, he would have taken the head for insolence on the spot. But — well. It was amusing enough. What breathed life into his numbed existence had always been the unexpected.
"What is it, then?"
The Hero answered at once.
"Access rights to the Imperial Archives, and troops to search the mountains around the capital."
He thought: the simplest way to make a reclusive Transcendent who was merely too lazy to show himself actually appear was to make remaining hidden more troublesome than coming out.
"...Haa."
That a skeleton could sigh was a remarkably surprising fact. He had simply etched his living voice and habits into the circuits as they had been — so of course it was natural.
"Very well. I accept."
"In that case, I shall collect what is owed me."
The Emperor remembered his own demand and restated it: Spring's person was to be handed over to him.
And then the Saintess spoke to the Emperor.
—I must keep her with me.—
The Emperor registered the beautiful voice lodging itself in his mind like a nail driven home. He was briefly startled, then recovered his composure almost at once.
Even in this, she resembles her.
He thought it, and answered,
"Why?"
—I need her to stabilize my mind.—
The Saintess chose the frontal assault. She was thoroughly sick of having to scheme.