Chapter 155: Ta-da, I'm Back
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 155: Ta-da, I'm Back
All roads must come to an end.
The same was true even for the Meta Conveyor Belt that endlessly circled the Military State; there always came a time to get off. Aimless wandering has no destination, after all. Perhaps a road was just something you walked until you reached a moment when you could go no further.
This was the Amitengrad Terminal. The most populous city in the Military State, and an insult to the capital of the old kingdom.
The city that came into view when I looked up seemed like a massive bomb frozen at the moment of detonation. Gray and black concrete grew, massive and chaotic, in every direction, as if simply to fill the empty space. The concrete clung to itself here and there, gradually swelling in size.
Meanwhile, anything that couldn't keep up with the Military State sank and was pushed aside. Buildings, people, equipment, trash—all of it piled up on the outskirts, resembling the debris of an explosion.
In fact, it was debris. The broken and discarded components of the explosion that was the Military State.
Ah, the Military State. This goddamned country.
The magician has returned.
I was in the middle of my sentimental reverie.
The captain, having finished the arrival procedures, followed me. As we disembarked at the terminal, drivers emerged from a line of automaton carriages, eyeing us. A few of the more proactive ones even approached us directly.
“Captain, welcome. It’s quite a distance from here to Amitengrad. Might you be in need of a carriage?”
Before the captain could say anything, I held up my fingers and spoke.
“Four people. Can you take us?”
“Of course! Should I get it ready?”
“Quickly.”
The driver, overjoyed, led us to his automaton carriage. The other drivers looked disappointed and went back to waiting for other passengers, while a few left to load luggage instead of people.
The captain looked at the mother and son who had disembarked with us and asked.
“Four people? Are you planning to take them as well?”
“Yes. Call it fate. Shall we travel together since we’re heading the same way?”
I extended the offer to the mother and son. The mother was a bit wary, but after a glance at her child, exhausted from the long journey, she gratefully accepted my proposal.
We boarded the automaton carriage the excited driver had brought over. Through the window, I could see large cranes and laborers who had been dragged here, all moving about busily. Some were prisoners of the Military State, forced to work, while the rest had joined the labor force just to earn their daily bread. The terminal was always short on hands.
As soon as we were inside the smooth, quiet automaton carriage, the son fell asleep as if he’d collapsed. The mother rested her son’s head on her lap and stroked his hair. A benevolent smile graced her lips, as if she had set aside all her troubles and worries for a moment.
With the child asleep, the captain and I ended up sitting side by side.
The automaton carriage swayed gently, proceeding along the finely paved road. As the cityscape, once a distant sight, gradually came into full view, the captain kept glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.
Just as the automaton carriage reached its destination.
“Ah! Please let me off here!”
I raised my hand to call the driver. The automaton carriage stopped, and the driver, having to let me off so soon, poked his head out of the driver’s seat with a slightly sullen look on his face.
“Are you sure? This is District 15, quite a ways from the city center.”
“No problem. I have some business here.”
“Then the fare is….”
“Ah, the others are continuing on. Captain Bbey, I’m counting on you!”
Usually, the last person to get off pays the fare. That’s why you need the sense to read the situation and get off early.
I was about to turn away, having cheerfully passed the responsibility of payment to the person behind me.
“Wait!”
Just as I was about to wave goodbye, the captain suddenly grabbed my sleeve. I feigned ignorance.
“What is it? Is something wrong, Captain Bbey?”
The captain hesitated for a moment before speaking.
“…You. You are still under suspicion.”
“That doesn’t mean I’m going to march myself into the Military Police headquarters, does it? You weren’t actually expecting that, were you?”
“Hngh.”
“We only agreed to travel to Amitengrad together, right? You and the Military State may not acknowledge it, but I diligently completed my labor sentence. If you want to lock me up again, bring a warrant.”
“But, still!”
“Why? Or is there some other reason?”
I am supposed to dispose of you. Or be disposed of by you. I cannot allow someone who knows my identity to walk free. But…
“…That’s classified.”
“Oh? What’s this? Do you want to stay with me?”
“…! Negative! Why would I! I’ll say it again: if I could, I would erase every memory of ever meeting you!”
“Then isn’t it better if we part ways here?”
“Urgh…!”
But I don’t want to die. I don’t want to kill. I just want to live on, pretending not to know. If only… if only our relationship had remained as it was in that prison, where we only met occasionally through a golem. That would have been better.
“…It’s classified!”
What am I going to do with this earnest model student?
Hmm. I suppose I have no choice.
As the old saying goes.
He who touches pitch shall be defiled. Hang out with bad friends, and you’ll pick up bad habits. That’s why you’re supposed to make good friends.
So blame yourself for making a bad friend like me, Captain. I’m going to corrupt you.
For both of us to survive, we have no choice but to become delinquent enough to lie without batting an eye.
“Well, I can’t help it. I’m an easy man, so I can’t just ignore a temptation like this.”
“When did I ever tempt you?!”
“What is this attitude of not wanting to part ways if not a temptation? We have a week’s grace period anyway, right? Let’s just enjoy a short vacation until then. Now, come on.”
I pulled the captain’s arm and led her toward the exit. Only the mother and child remained.
As frugal as I am, I can’t make someone with no money pay the fare. That would be fraud.
I took some Alchemic Gold from my pocket and held it out to the driver.
“Mister! I’ll pay in advance, so please take these people wherever they want to go!”
“Oh, my. Yes, sir. You can count on me.”
The driver, having received a tip on top of the fare, was overjoyed. As I led the captain out of the automaton carriage, the mother, left inside with her son, bowed from the waist to express her gratitude.
“Thank you. I don’t know how I can ever repay this kindness…”
“Oh, it’s nothing to thank me for. It’s fine.”
I waved my hand and smiled brightly at the mother, who was delighted by her good fortune.
“Just think of it as the balance you were supposed to receive. Your plans went awry because you didn’t get the full payment from them, didn’t they?”
The mother, unable to follow my words for a moment, asked blankly.
“…What?”
“Oops. Look at me, blocking the way! We’re getting off now! Have a safe trip!”
I closed the door of the automaton carriage. The mother, realizing too late that a secret she should have taken to her grave had been exposed, tried to follow me out immediately. But as it happened, the world’s heaviest press-stone was sleeping soundly on her lap. For her, it was likely a weight heavier than Jizan itself.
Trapped, the mother could only lean out the window and shout.
“Wait…! Please, I’m sorry! Forgive me…!”
But it was no use. The automaton carriage moved on heartlessly. The mother’s desperate cries faded into the distance.
The captain, failing to grasp the situation, was filled with questions.
“Query. What did you mean by ‘balance’?”
“It’s nothing much. That woman was actually a collaborator with the Resistance.”
I stated the fact calmly. The captain flinched in surprise and stared at the departing automaton carriage.
“Query. How can you prove that to be true?”
I can’t. Because I only read her mind.
But I could piece it together well enough. I began to explain as I walked leisurely, as if I were the detective of the century.
“The containers loaded onto the Meta Conveyor Belt come in three sizes, but their design is identical. It has to be, so the cranes can lift them.”
“Affirmative. That is information I am well aware of.”
“But then how did the Resistance identify the cargo they were targeting before jumping from the cliff, dangling from ropes? What if they had landed on the wrong one?”
The problem with dangling from a rope on a cliff to board the belt is that if you get the wrong one, it’s all for nothing.
And since they couldn’t exactly perform some newfangled exercise of running against the direction of the Meta Conveyor Belt, the Resistance needed a way to accurately identify their target cargo.
Now, that raises a question. How did they identify their target? Did they use a signaller? Or did they run faster than the Meta Conveyor Belt to get there?
Not a chance.
Understanding my implication, the captain’s mouth fell open.
“…A collaborator. Did that mother and son send them a signal from beside the cargo?”
“The mother, to be precise. The signal was probably a lamp.”
If you make a lamp run wild in a certain way, it emits a red light that’s highly visible from a distance. The Resistance must have told the mother how to do it, so they could use that light as a signal to attack.
The captain, now aware of the truth, said in dismay.
“But they said they lost their lamp…”
“They didn’t lose it; they placed it on the target cargo. She was supposed to stay by it, but it seems the child was struggling, so she took shelter by the windbreak.”
You can borrow the warmth of a lamp, but you can’t conjure a windbreak out of thin air.
A signaller is still a signaller, after all. The links of information began to connect one by one in the captain’s mind. After silently processing the information, the captain suddenly found a hole in the story and asked.
“…That’s impossible. Then why did the Resistance attack our position?”
Ahaha, well, about that.
The truth is, after reading her mind, I made my own lamp run wild. And I placed it a little ways from the windbreak.
So the Resistance, waiting somewhere, could see it clearly.
I didn’t expect them to come down from the mountains, though!
But it was too much of a hassle to explain, so I just gave her a benevolent smile and said.
“It’s a secret.”
“Tell me!”
“No. I’d rather not tarnish my own image.”
Ah, Mother. It’s wonderful that you care so much for your son.
But there’s no way a lamp just placed on a container would have stayed upright amidst all that wind and vibration.
If things had just passed by, she surely would have faced retaliation from the Resistance. Not just for taking the money and running, but because there was a high chance she would have reported them to the Military State.
When you think about it, I actually helped the mother.
The ten or so Resistance members ended up dead, but that’s just how things turned out. Well, what can I say? It was truly your bad luck. Maybe you would have succeeded if Sunderspear hadn’t been there?
Realizing she had been sitting next to a Resistance collaborator just moments ago, the captain clenched her fists and glared at me.
“You just used the word ‘balance.’ Does that mean you provided financial support to a Resistance collaborator?”
“And what if I did? If you get in a carriage and chase them now, you could catch one Resistance collaborator. Are you going to do that?”
“That is the law and the rule. Rules must be observed. Being punished for breaking the law and sanctioned for breaking the rules is the promise that keeps this nation upright.”
The captain spoke as rigidly as the Military State Standard Font written in her manual.
“The same applies to you. Financial support for a collaborator. The moment your willful negligence is acknowledged, you will be punished as well!”
“Then what about the child?”
For a brief moment, the captain froze. The face of the child, sleeping without a care in the world, flashed through her mind. Pain and guilt flickered across her face for an instant.
This must be why the Windowless Room was necessary. If you had to face them directly… a signaller as pure as she was could become contaminated.
But the captain was accustomed to enduring pain. Suppressing even the ache in her own heart, she said coldly,
“There is no problem. The Military State operates orphanages for children without guardians.”
The kind of orphanages that put children to work at the age of six under the guise of ‘vocational training.’ I know them well.
And Captain Abbey knows it, too. That’s why she can’t say anything more and keeps her mouth shut.
Having returned to my old stomping grounds, I walked on, navigating the familiar streets. Lost in thought, the captain followed me in silence.