Chapter 291: Two is Greater Than One
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 291: Two is Greater Than One
“Ugh. It’s always the same. Going down is easy, but climbing back up is twice as hard.”
I grumbled as I scaled the ladder.
In a darkness so thick I could barely see, I climbed rung by rung, relying on my senses alone. After fumbling for so long, I lost all sense of how high I’d climbed or where in the world I was. It felt like I was ascending an endless ladder.
It might have been different if my senses were sharp, but thanks to the drugs I’d taken earlier, they were anything but. If I let my mind wander for even a moment, I might let go of the rungs and attempt to fly.
Wait, that’s right. Why am I not flying? Why am I bothering to climb this ladder one rung at a time?
Alright, I’ll let go and flap my wings. On the count of three… one, two…
“Waaaaait!”
The sound filled the dim passageway, a warning bell I rang for myself through my own eardrums. Startled by my own voice, my mind barely managed to regain its sanity.
I spoke aloud, deliberately.
“Phew, that was close. I almost committed suicide in some sewer. How lame.”
Even high on drugs, I’d been able to maintain a sense of self by reading other people’s thoughts. By reading another’s perspective with my mind-reading, I could remain objective. Thus, the drugs couldn’t completely shatter my reason. One of the few advantages of telepathy, I suppose.
But now, with no one else around, I was utterly subjective.
What did that mean? It meant that, with the drugs still in my system, I was a lunatic.
“It would be better if there was at least one normal person next to me. But there’s no one right now. Maybe there’ll be someone once I get up there.”
Quite a few people had come down with me. But now, I was alone.
The others had decided to remain below.
Abbey and Yuel were one thing, but Shiati’s choice was unexpected.
Shiati had openly declared that she couldn’t trust Yuel and Abbey. She argued that becoming a king didn’t erase the sins of the past and that she couldn’t trust them without some kind of guarantee. Pouring cold water on the mood like that was a performance only Shiati could pull off.
However, she didn’t fly into a rage, threatening to kill them as she had before. Instead, she chose to stay behind to be ready to eliminate them should they ever stray from their path. She had no special powers, but she did possess a thumb that was exceptionally good at killing a single person.
But from what I read of her thoughts at that moment, they were strange. I recalled Shiati and muttered to myself.
“You wanted to become the solemn judge, didn’t you, Shiati? The one who can judge the king would be the highest person in the Military State. Maybe you’re the most successful one out of all of us.”
A judge. What a grand position. Instead of ruling or creating, you just watch, and if you don’t like what you see, you deliver ‘judgment.’ It was a position of power without responsibility. And Shiati had volunteered for it.
The Princess, horrified, tried to stop her, but you can’t stop Shiati without understanding her. Then again, if she had understood, she wouldn’t have tried to stop her in the first place.
In any case, Shiati’s will was so firm that even the Princess couldn’t change her mind. After some hesitation, the conflicted Princess chose to stay behind with Shiati, though she emphasized several times that it was ‘only for a little while.’
“Still, I didn’t think I’d be the only one who wanted to go outside. It’s easy to fall, but hard to climb back up. Is that why everyone is stagnating down there?”
Unlike Yuel or Abbey, I don’t have the ability to see the outside world from a seated position. I can’t live like that.
As I climbed with renewed determination, I eventually reached a point where the ladder simply ended. Who the hell builds a ladder and just stops halfway? Maybe I should just jump… no, that’s not it. I shook my head, trying to dispel the increasingly extreme thoughts.
The ladder ending meant I had reached the surface. Steeling myself, I reached a hand above my head and felt something hard. I should push… not headbutt it. All I had to do was open this and step outside.
I planted my feet on the top rung of the ladder and pushed the cover with all my might.
“Nnggghhh.”
As I forced the cover open, the first thing I saw was a half-demolished, collapsed building. It was the Communications Headquarters, destroyed during the fight between the Angel and Historia. As I peeked out like a mole, a wind mixed with dust and dirt hit my face. The taste of soil was bitter.
The air outside is worse than in the basement. Maybe it’s better to live down there than in this dirty, dangerous world. I pushed the cover all the way off and clumsily crawled out, belly-down.
Greetings, dusty surface world. I have returned, having buried a secret in the depths of the Military State…
Wait. Sand and dust? Wind?
This was definitely indoors. Even if it was half-destroyed, had it collapsed enough for the wind to blow through?
A chill ran down my spine. Not because of the wind, but because my instincts had realized something.
I could read thoughts. Not Historia’s, but someone else’s entirely.
I slowly turned my head. My eyes met someone’s. As if they had been waiting for the very moment I noticed their presence, they waited a beat after our eyes met before shouting.
“Welcome! I thought my neck would snap from waiting for you!”
It was a man with a huge grin plastered across his face, wearing a monocle with a gear-toothed rim and a heavy-looking cloak that enveloped his entire body.
Was he a friend? No. I’d only met him face-to-face once before.
Did we have good memories? No. We fought that time, too. I even punched him in the face.
We were clearly not on friendly terms, yet he was approaching me with a one-sided sense of intimacy.
An unwelcome situation. But I couldn’t show it.
After all, my opponent was one of the Six Generals, said to be the strongest in the Military State. I gave a reluctant greeting.
“Mr. Maximilien? It’s been a while. Have you been well?”
“Well? I’ve been waiting so long to see you again, I thought my neck would break! I never imagined we’d be reunited so easily!”
He was nowhere to be seen until now, and he just had to show up when I was at my most defenseless. He spoke with a gleeful laugh.
“It’s all so unpredictable! I was trying to devise a plan to meet you, bypassing the young man who uses the Progenitor’s or the Divine’s power. But to think you’d come to me on your own! This makes calling for backup rather pointless, doesn’t it?”
“I didn’t exactly come here to see you.”
“You came to see the Envoy, I know! But what does that matter? The most important thing is that we’ve met now, without any interruptions!”
Wow, if a woman had said that to me, my heart might have fluttered. But since it was a crazy old man, my heart was pounding for a completely different reason. Disgusted, I slowly backed away.
This was not a good situation.
I had two safety nets I’d been relying on. One was Historia, the other was the Princess. As is the nature of insurance, I’d placed more faith in the stable Historia than the variable-filled Princess.
I might have been a bit too dependent on her, but I figured Historia, a General, could handle most crises… or so I thought.
But what did it mean that another General, Maximilien, was waiting for me?
“Are you perhaps looking for this?”
Maximilien snapped his fingers.
A deafening roar followed, as if a giant were squeezing the entire world in its fist.
The collapsed building began to move. No, whatever had destroyed the building was moving, and the concrete debris shifted and crumbled like waves.
I wondered if this was what it would feel like to be inside a sandcastle as it collapsed. The pillars that supported the building, the rebar that served as the concrete’s skeleton—they all crumbled as easily as dry sand.
What emerged, grandly overturning the building, was a colossal carriage made of gears.
At a glance, it looked like a regular automaton carriage, stripped to its frame and magnified several times over. But the way it moved resembled an insect more than a carriage.
A gear does not turn alone. It must move in concert with its neighbors.
As a result, whenever the massive body moved, hundreds of gears rippled in motion. It was less like a carriage rolling and more like a caterpillar crawling, a grotesque sight.
The monster, crushing even the building as it approached, stopped a few paces in front of me. It was so imposing I had to crane my neck just to see it all.
I swallowed hard and replied calmly.
“I’m not a scrap dealer.”
“This is no scrap. This is the ‘Steel Beetle.’ My masterpiece, the culmination of half my life’s work!”
“Don’t you feel that half a lifetime dedicated to a mere toy was a waste?”
“Hmm, you think so? A different perspective from my own. Wouldn’t a life not spent in the pursuit of joy be a far greater waste?”
Even though I was trying to provoke him a little, Maximilien just laughed it off. For some reason, his opinion of me was far too high. Why is it that all the people who like me at first sight are men? I was suddenly overcome with sadness.
Maximilien spoke with a magnanimous air.
“I’ll give you a chance to examine it up close. I’m sure someone like you will understand the structure of the Steel Beetle in no time!”
“I’m not particularly interested in understanding it. I mean your hobbies, not the structure.”
“You’ll have to. You may not be looking for it, but what you’re looking for is in there.”
Now he was just forcing the issue. I couldn’t pretend not to know any longer. I watched him cautiously as I slowly walked forward.
On the front of the gear-wrought carriage, something like a ship’s figurehead was mounted. It was the ominous figure of a woman, her black hair hanging limply, her entire body stained with blood—a sight more fitting for a ghost ship.
Her arms and legs were not visible, buried. Her limbs were crushed between the teeth of interlocking gears.
A horrifying thought, but if those gears were to turn…
“Hue…y.”
Historia’s arms and legs would be ground to pulp between the massive gears.
What in the world happened while I was gone for a moment? I stood before the wretched form of Historia and fiddled with the gears that bound her.
“You even learned a new ultimate move. How did you get caught?”
“…Hngh. I wasn’t at my best. If my body had been in better condition…”
“You still have pride to protect at a time like this? Just wait a second. I’ll try to get you out.”
I grabbed the gears and tried to pull, but they wouldn’t budge. It seemed I couldn’t free her with my strength alone. It would take at least Historia’s level of power to break this thing…
‘A useless effort. That is a gear knot of my own design. The more force you apply, the more that force will be transferred to tighten around Major General Historia. Of course, I’m sure you’ll figure out its structure without much difficulty!’
So that’s why it was so needlessly complex. What a vicious device.
My meager strength wouldn’t add much to Historia’s burden, but there was no point in wasting effort on a fruitless task. I let go of the gears and said, “Brute force won’t work. The gears are interlocked too precisely. A reckless move could get you hurt.”
“…This isn’t the time to worry about me.”
“You think so?”
Right, who was I to worry about others?
I was weak, had no special abilities, and was completely unprepared to face a General. I could guarantee that I was more helpless right now than Historia, who was trapped in the gears.
It seemed Historia thought so, too.
“Run. Or at least buy some time. Just until your companion arrives. The gears he controls are pure physical force. The Progenitor would have an advantage against Director Maximilien’s gears. So… just humor him, do whatever it takes. Fortunately, he seems to like you…”
“Hey. No matter how pathetic I am, do I really need to take advice from someone who’s tied up?”
“Do you have a plan? You won’t even be able to escape from Director Maximilien. I know from clashing with him once. That man is… strange.”
Historia spoke with a grave expression, as if she were leaking a military secret. I mulled over her words and replied.
“I know. He’s obviously strange. Do you really need to fight him to figure that out?”
“I’m being serious! The Director’s Qi is different somehow… Ugh!”
“Don’t move. The gears are turning.”
A pressure strong enough to bend steel was being applied to her arms. She could only endure it because she had reinforced her body with Qi; a normal person’s limbs would have been torn off.
It seemed cruel, but to restrain a powerhouse like Historia without killing her, this was probably the only way. In a way, it was rational, and in another, it was a friendly gesture. It meant he didn’t want to kill her or injure her more than necessary.
“The Director must be after something. I don’t know why he didn’t kill me… If I can just figure that out…”
“I’ll tell you.”
Unlike her old self, who tried to solve everything with force, she was now trying to think things through. It seemed she’d developed the ability to see the bigger picture, as befitting a general. As always, circumstances make the person.
Naturally, my response would also change with the circumstances.
“What?”
“The Warforger knows, and I know. If you, my ally in all this, don’t know, then the math doesn’t add up.”
Historia’s judgment was worthy of a general. So, if I could help her make faster decisions with a simple truth, it would be to my advantage.
So I told her.
“The Warforger is not my enemy.”
Of course, this was all predicated on the assumption that Historia would remain my ally even after knowing this.
But you can’t call yourself a gambler if you don’t even trust the cards in your own hand.
“…Not… your enemy?”
I nodded and began to explain.
“There are six generals. With you on my side, that leaves three in the Inner Circle: the Camarilla, the Warforger, and the Envoy. At the point the Camarilla left, only the Warforger and the Envoy were at headquarters. That leaves a very simple math problem. An inequality comparing 1 and 2, something a child could do.”
I held up my hand and spread my fingers. One on my side, two on theirs. Naturally, two has the advantage over one. Even if there are differences between the Generals, it’s ultimately a difference in nature.
Once power reaches a certain level, it becomes a single number. Anything below the standard is discarded below the decimal point, reigning as a whole number.
“But if Shei-ssi isn’t here, the inequality sign flips. Like this.”
As I spoke, I slowly folded and then unfolded my fingers. Now, there were two on my side, and one on theirs. Now, I had the advantage.
Naturally, ‘theirs’ was the Envoy. The Envoy, who created and protected the Military State and wished for it to continue, would never tolerate change.
However, the Warforger, who created the Military State but saw it as nothing more than an interesting toy…
“That’s right!”
Maximilien affirmed my words, a broad smile on his face.