The Great Catastrophe's Re-employment Plan
Woom—
Hum—
"…Honestly."
Back at Logan's inn in Enton Village—the place he'd been staying all along—Juhan carefully slipped a hand into his coat and drew out the metal plate that was still vibrating.
The shaking's died down a lot, at least.
Compared to before, the plate's tremors had fallen off sharply. Unless someone leaned in close beside him and listened hard, it would be difficult to notice at all. That didn't mean the problem was solved, of course.
It's still reacting, in the end.
He was going to have to think a little longer about how to shut the thing up.
I've already got a plan sketched out. Looking for someone who can decipher this plate wouldn't be a bad idea either.
The plan Juhan had settled on went like this:
Yeah. Heading for the Holy Kingdom is the right call.
Find some way to silence the bell and the metal plate, then slip inside the Holy Kingdom. When he'd laid out everything—his contact with the Saintess, the offer to become a Pilgrimage Knight—Karun and Pate hadn't hesitated for a second.
"If there is any means at all of rendering the bell and the plate useless, then remaining within the Holy Kingdom would be the safest course for You, Creator."
Hide among them and avoid suspicion. That, they insisted, was the surest and safest path.
If the others drew every gaze outward while Juhan worked his way into the Holy Kingdom from within…
They'll trust me and hand me work. They won't be looking to suspect me.
Woom—
With that thought, Juhan quietly studied the plate a moment longer. Then, as if the decision were made, he rose and brushed himself off. It seemed he had somewhere he needed to go.
You can feel the years on it, sure—but this plate was definitely made recently.
The piece he held now, no matter how carefully maintained, didn't look more than a hundred years old at the outside.
Which meant it had been forged after the bells—and not that long ago.
So even if I can't find whoever built it, someone who can take it apart and analyze it ought to be findable.
Unless Carius and his companions had laid hands on the thing themselves, someone from this era could reasonably reach the same level of craft.
He slid the plate back into his coat.
All right.
I'm sure I heard… Enton Village has a pretty well-known magical engineer around here somewhere.
One of the rumors he'd picked up while moving through the village—one that had stuck with him—came back to mind.
Inside a cave where a bleak wind was blowing—
"So you're saying we just topple an entire city?"
"It's still too early. But if we want to throw them into real chaos, we'll need a shock to match."
"Well… you're not wrong. For that kind of work, though, Number One would be better than us, wouldn't he?"
Fwoosh—
Three figures of uncertain identity sat around a campfire, talking in low voices.
"That's impossible."
"Why? It's for everyone's good. We just ask, don't we? Or better yet—"
"You mean we petition the Creator to order Number One for us."
"Yeah. Exactly. If it were His command, even he would…"
"Liru."
Number Four—or rather, the woman now named Liru—looked up as Number Three, Pate, spoke.
"The only reason Number One has not yet killed us is the Creator's single command."
"……"
"For us, maintaining the relationship exactly as it is now is the best we can do. There is no need to provoke him without cause. This is not a matter for which we should go begging him in the first place."
"…Tch. What did we even do to him. That guy really gets under my skin."
Tap. Tap.
Perhaps the irritating face had come to mind. Liru jabbed at the fire with a stick for no good reason, sulking. The pout said it all.
Listening to the exchange, Karun finally spoke.
"In any case, I intend to return to Poltable for now."
"Poltable… that's the city where you've been operating, right?"
"It is."
He would go back and keep gathering intelligence. But Karun wasn't finished.
"Like me, you two should secure solid identities that will let you blend into human society."
"Identities? Us as well?"
"A day will come when they are absolutely necessary. Prepare in advance."
"Karun is not wrong. The question is only what kind of identities we should obtain."
"Hmm… is that so?"
Rustle.
As he spoke, Karun rummaged inside his coat. What he produced was one of the metal plates the Executors carried.
"And do not approach Holy Knights, the Holy Kingdom, or—especially—the bells in the cathedrals."
"They ring if they sense our presence, was it? What a nasty little device."
"Not everything rings. I had no trouble, at least."
Karun's explanation followed: he still didn't know the exact trigger, but the bell had never sounded for him. Something in that seemed to spark a thought; Pate turned a question on him.
"Hearing you just now, I begin to suspect the bell may not be the sort of thing that simply detects aura."
"Not detecting aura?"
Pate was arguing that it did not, in fact, seem to sense the Creator's power.
"If it did, it should have reacted to you as well. You say it did not."
"So you're saying it senses something beyond mere aura."
"It may."
"…I have no idea what either of you is talking about."
Not aura alone, but the very existence of the Great Catastrophe—that was Pate's hypothesis. For now, of course, there was no way to confirm it.
"Even so, there is no need to go near a bell just to examine it. We need not take on unnecessary risk."
"Haaah…"
"Liru. I am speaking to you. I would appreciate it if you actually listened."
"Yeah, yeah~ Got it."
In the end, they had arrived at the same conclusion as Juhan.
"As I thought, we will need to get our hands on at least one of those bells somehow."
"Well, acquiring one shouldn't be that hard. You said they're basically left half-abandoned as it is."
"For the moment, yes. The problem is that it will not stay that way as time goes on. Or rather—security may already have been tightened considerably."
Karun's call for still greater caution. Liru shook her head as if the whole conversation bored her and rose to her feet.
Thud.
"Ah, right~ So sitting here talking doesn't actually solve anything, is that the point?"
"…What part of this conversation have you been listening to."
"That we have to do something before problems appear—or before we find a solution. Isn't that it?"
A sly grin.
Liru spoke as if something entertaining were about to happen, the corner of her mouth curling up.
"So from the start we don't need to come on too strong. Leave traces on purpose while we work—that was the idea, right?"
"You're leaving already?"
"What's the point of staying? He's already gone back."
"Mm."
Perhaps she simply had no desire to sit and talk with them any longer. Liru made a face of pure distaste and spoke as if she were already on her way out.
"So? Your answer?"
"Yes. Leave enough traces of our activity that rumors begin to spread, little by little, among the humans."
"Good."
She clenched a fist, smiling as if that settled it, and turned to Pate.
"And if we can make contact with whatever's left of the Great Catastrophe's cult, that would be best—that was the other part, right?"
"If they still exist and they find our traces, they will try to approach us by any means available. No—they will have no choice."
"And if they don't?"
"Even then, it is no great loss."
Having heard everything she wanted, Liru was already moving toward the cave mouth as if the conversation were finished.
Step. Step.
"Right, then—last thing. If we need to make contact, we come find you, Karun. The Verhart Baronry, was it?"
"Establish an identity in human society first, if you can, then come. That way I will be able to seek you out in turn later on."
"Yeah~ yeah, got it. I'm off, then~"
With that answer she was gone. Watching her back, Karun and Pate looked at each other and continued.
"Beginning tonight is a little hasty. I worry about that."
"It cannot be helped. We need to turn their eyes elsewhere before more time passes."
"Mm…"
They already knew what Liru meant to do that night.
"For this sort of work, Liru is ideal. That cruelty, that ruthlessness—and the sadism. In those respects she outstrips us both."
"……"
What Liru intended was simple: to erase a village from the map entirely.
Somewhere of modest size—large enough that the neighboring settlements would notice within a day or two once it was gone.
And so, that night, while a nameless little village went about preparing for the next morning as usual, an unknown woman appeared.
By the time the sun rose over it again, there was nothing left that could still be called a village.
That the dreadful rumor spread in every direction was only natural.
Nearby cities and towns, of course—but the Holy Kingdom and several other kingdoms heard it as well.
And if the same rumor reached a certain unknown group that had gone to ground so deep it no longer even saw the sun… that, too, might not have been so strange.