The Cult (2)
"Th-the Cult Leader isn't planning to step in personally, right?"
"You want me to move?"
"That'd kill all the fun. Leave the whole thing to me. I'll smash them so clean they'll feel the breeze."
Elmo threw his chin up as he said it, brimful of confidence, and a laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it. He was full of mischief on an ordinary day. Teasing him a little wouldn't hurt.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
I drummed my fingers slowly against the table and asked him,
"Should I come along, or shouldn't I?"
"No. Just watch from a distance. I'll handle it."
"Really?"
"And, hey... mind if I skim a little off the top while I'm there?"
Elmo shaped his fingers into the sign for money. Roughly translated: was he allowed to shake those people down for cash? He'd blow it on gambling, obviously, but given who the other side was, I didn't particularly care. We were too close to the main event to bother polishing the Cult's reputation anyway.
"I told you from the start. The greatest benefit I give you is the Cult's name."
"Got it. I'll head out, then."
Elmo shoved his chair back with his foot and stood. At the sight, I flicked a glance at Senia. She sighed and snapped her fingers. Space split, and the image of a dim city unfolded in the empty air.
"I opened it right above the address on the invitation."
"Hey, brat. Isn't this a little high?"
"If I opened it at ground level they'd notice, you idiot. And a fall from up there won't kill you anyway."
"Hah. What's the point of arguing with a kid. I'm going."
The moment Elmo, wrapped in wind, leapt for the ground, I called on the power of the spirit Arthes had swallowed. It was Far Sight, the ability of the Spirit of Observation. Far Sight let me perceive a designated target and everything around them, no matter the distance. Elmo, and the world he was falling into, began to pour into my mind.
"Tsk. Cute face, and look at the attitude."
Grumbling about Senia, he bled off his falling speed with the wind. Once he was low enough to make out the building's windows, he clung to the glass and started sizing up the people inside: men who looked to be in the middle of a meeting, and bodyguards standing at their backs. Just as Senia had said, the place he'd landed was the hall where the Black Star Conference was underway. One of the men beyond the glass noticed him and went stiff with alarm.
"...This has to be the place."
BOOM!
Before the man who'd spotted him could so much as move, Elmo swung his fist. Wind burst along the path of the punch, and the window shattered. Shards tore inward, and some of the people inside started bleeding.
"Yo. Everybody doing all right?"
"Ghk... What the hell are you...!"
Elmo stepped into the building as casually as if nothing had happened, and offered a greeting to the people still reeling from the intrusion. One of the men, seeing that, drew a gun. Glass still buried in his flesh, face twisted, he pulled the trigger.
Bang! Bang!
The shots cracked, and the bullets flew. Naturally, the rounds aimed at Elmo struck the wind mana wrapped around him and went wide.
"Heard you invited the Cult, so I dropped by. So where's my seat?"
Elmo asked it while picking at one ear, and the man seated at the head of the table frowned. Beside him, a spirit he had partially manifested had thrown itself in front of the shards. The spirit itself didn't look especially high in rank, but the fact that he could manifest even a portion of it was proof the man was no small fry.
"I am Kedalier Vegas, representative of the Black Star Conference and boss of the Kedalier Family. Are you the Cult's Leader?"
"The Cult Leader? As if. Seventh Apostle of the Cult. Elmo Spindius."
"Elmo Spindius... The Blue Gale the streets won't shut up about."
The moment Kedalier heard the name, he made a show of knowing it. Elmo was a fairly famous villain even in the underworld. It wasn't strange that Kedalier knew of him.
"What, you know me?"
"Hard not to know the Republic's supernova. I don't know what an Apostle is, but you seem to belong to the Cult, so I'll speak plainly. May I treat you as the Cult's representative for now?"
"Well, today I'm as good as the Cult Leader's stand-in."
"Then if I put a question to you..."
"But the hospitality here kinda sucks. Why don't I have a seat?"
Elmo cut him off, lifted one knee, and spun into a hard kick that caught someone nearby. A fierce gust followed, and the man Elmo's leg connected with slammed into the wall.
"Kagh!"
"Boss Jack! Are you all right?! You bastard...!"
The Black Star Conference was a gathering of the underworld bosses who ruled the border city. The man Elmo had kicked across the room would have brought a guard of his own, and seeing his master attacked, that bodyguard immediately called on his spirit's power. His whole body shifted, taking on a metallic sheen, and he charged straight at Elmo.
"Whoa. An enhancement-type spirit?"
As a rule, enhancement-type spirit users held the advantage over manifestation-types like Elmo. But the spirit Elmo had contracted was a Highest-Grade Spirit, the highest rank among spirits in existence, and his own combat sense was outstanding on top of that. The bodyguard charged in full of confidence and, in the same instant, was launched out the window.
KRAANG!
He collided with the outer wall of the building across the way and cracked a massive fissure into it. At the sight, the members of the Black Star Conference erupted.
"Iron Arm Walter went down without even reacting!"
"Perhaps we should clear the room."
"That..."
Whatever reaction the Conference showed, Elmo paid it no mind. He just stretched and said his piece, nice and loud.
"Now there's finally a seat."
He hooked the fallen chair upright with his foot and dropped into it, planting his feet on the table exactly as he had in our own meeting. The members seated around him scrambled back and shouted at Kedalier.
"Hey, Kedalier! Do something, fast!"
"Enough. I would prefer everyone remain quiet."
"But..."
"Making a scene here will only add to the body count. Each of you heads an organization, do you not? I would ask you to conduct yourselves accordingly."
Kedalier quieted the entire Black Star Conference, then turned his gaze on Elmo, who had taken the seat to his right. Elmo met it with a thoroughly arrogant look.
"So. What'd you wanna know?"
"That strength... It could stand beside Randell, the Republic's war hero."
General Randell Peltience, contractor of a Highest-Grade Spirit. He was the Republic's war hero, counted its strongest spirit user, revered as a living legend. To set Elmo beside that Randell—he was rating him absurdly high.
"Yeah? That guy wasn't much either."
"You look like the Cult's greatest asset. Are you truly not the Cult Leader?"
A Highest-Grade spirit user was a strategic asset even a nation could count on one hand. That such a man wasn't the Cult's head clearly struck him as suspicious. But the Apostles operating under the Cult already numbered nine. The Black Star Conference had picked the wrong opponent from the very start.
"The Cult Leader? What, you wanna see her? I mean, if you're only looking at the face, our Cult Leader is pretty damn cute."
"That isn't what I meant. If possible, a conversation of equals, representative to representative, would—"
"Equals, my ass."
Elmo stamped his foot down. Where it hit the table, a small crack spidered out.
"Cut the pathetic crap. If the Cult Leader showed up, every one of you would die."
"All of us?"
"Doesn't look it, but she's a monster you wouldn't believe. Even I crawl around on my belly in front of the Cult Leader."
In truth Elmo had never so much as bowed his head, let alone crawled—but if he said so, they all seemed ready to believe it. Kedalier, watching him, was sweating cold. Nerves, most likely. However strong Kedalier himself might be, there was a limit, and if he could avoid it, he wouldn't want to fight someone he'd just judged equal to the Republic's greatest asset.
"...What is it the Cult Leader and the Cult actually want?"
"You think I'm crazy? Like I'd tell you that."
"Then why did you come."
"The Cult Leader told me to. Said to educate the idiots who don't know their place and come back. But I'm a pretty merciful guy, see. I don't really feel like hassling busy people for no reason."
Elmo said it with a greasy little smile, and Kedalier asked him straight.
"What do you want?"
"Quick on the uptake. I like that. Then cough up my travel expenses."
"Travel expenses?"
"Yours truly graced you with a personal visit all the way out here. Can't exactly go home empty-handed."
"So it comes down to money. Very well. I'll pay. How much."
Elmo held up two fingers. Twenty thousand? Or two hundred thousand? I was still guessing at the figure as I watched, when he named his price.
"Two million."
"T-two million squaris?"
"Yeah. That's about what it takes to make the trip worth it."
Two million squaris. Enough to buy several houses in the border city. A sum that suited Elmo perfectly—a man who didn't gamble to make money, but made money so he could gamble.