It's a Conspiracy, Not a Secret Meeting (1)
It's a Conspiracy, Not a Secret Meeting (1)
The Alchemy Hall club room. The single room tucked away inside it was the only space where Vermel and I could talk openly.
As if by appointment, we held a secret meeting there whenever we had the time. Calling it a conspiracy was more accurate than a tryst, but to everyone else, it probably didn't look that way.
In any case, what had to be done was decided. As soon as I arrived in the room, I unpacked my things.
"What is that?"
"What do you think. I got it from Jormungand."
"Pitchblende?"
"No. Something more expensive than that."
Before my words had even finished, the elf's face went pale. Vermel fled as far as he could into a corner and raised his voice, glaring at me.
"Why did you bring that here!"
"Why do you think. Because this is the only way to prove that I met Jormungand."
The elf's brow furrowed. He looked completely incredulous.
"I mean, did you absolutely have to prove it by showing me something that dangerous? You could have just told me!"
"I brought it in case you didn't believe me."
"What's not to believe!"
That was strange. If it had been me, I wouldn't have believed it unless I saw it with my own eyes.
As I tilted my head, Vermel put a hand to his forehead and groaned. He kept sighing like a man who had watched his country fall.
In that brief moment, I took the Magic Stones out of my bag for the purpose of showing Vermel. Not without precautions—I first activated the Radiation Shielding Scroll and then peeled off the boron wrapping, layer by layer.
"Hey, don't unwrap it!"
"Why not. It won't wear out just from being uncovered."
"What kind of nonsense...."
If he thought I couldn't build a primary bomb because of radioactive decay, he was sorely mistaken. The half-lives of these substances were tens of thousands of years at minimum.
I removed all the neutron absorbers and placed one of each of the two types of Magic Stones on the desk.
One was uranium. The other was plutonium.
"Wow. The color's nice."
Once placed, they looked like silver-tinted gems.
"Look at this lustrous color."
"Please."
I stroked the plutonium rod, just under a kilogram, and savored the texture. Vermel's horrified reaction was a predetermined sequence.
"Wait! I said don't touch it! That thing's volatile and dangerous if you mess up!"
Vermel's lips were trembling strangely. His urgency seemed to be scattering his words.
At the sight of the flustered elf, I let out a chuckle.
What was he worrying about in front of an expert?
"I told you, it's fine. Things like this should be left to people with experience."
"Don't give me that and put it away right now...."
"So you do believe me now?"
"Yeah. So please."
Good. He wouldn't be saying otherwise now.
"By the way, don't you get exposed messing with it like that?"
"Oh. You're curious?"
"No?"
"If you're curious, I should tell you."
I tapped the plutonium rod I was holding against my other palm several times. Slap, slap, smack. A light, winding sound echoed faintly through the cramped room.
"See, even if you shock it like this, a chain reaction won't start as long as it's below critical mass. Unless the shape or density changes, maybe.... How about that. Amazing?"
"Amazing, my ass, put it away now!"
"No fun at all."
With my lips pouting slightly, I sealed the Magic Stones. There was nothing more to show anyway.
"Alright. Shall we get to the main topic?"
We sat around the desk and faced each other. Vermel was still staring at me with an expression of deep disapproval.
"Did you really major in physics?"
"There you go again. This is exactly why you look like you don't trust me."
"No, if you're an expert in that field, you'd know best how dangerous it is. Even if you've got a Radiation Shielding Scroll going, it's still...."
"I said there's nothing to worry about."
I lifted both arms slightly and shrugged.
"For my body right now, this much is a green light."
Thump!
......What.
"What was that sound?"
"No clue."
We reflexively lowered our voices.
"I think someone's outside."
Holding my breath, I crept toward the iron door. When I put my ear against the door and waited, I faintly heard three people whispering on the other side.
[Did you just hear that? She said 'green light'!]
[What's a green light?]
[Rote, you don't need to know.]
All three seemed to be keeping their voices down, but unfortunately, both the Gold-Eye Tribe and elves had excellent hearing.
"These voices are...."
I could identify at least two of them.
Rote, and Frey.
The question of why the two of them were here now was quickly resolved.
After all, they were also club members. They probably came to clean the club room before the semester started and happened to eavesdrop on our conversation.
If a misunderstanding arose, they were friends I could talk it out with.
The problem was the remaining one.
[Anyway, this is a scoop! Let's see. Where did I put my recording scroll?]
At the last voice I heard, my brow furrowed automatically.
"I knew this would happen."
"What is it?"
Instead of answering out loud, I gestured to Vermel. It was a gesture asking him to lend me his ear.
"Do you know someone named Angelica Totsfel?"
"Fourth-year Angelica? I know her."
"I met her before coming here. She kept following me persistently."
Meaning she had tracked me all the way here. Was she really that obsessed with a story?
"This is a nuisance."
I had to do something about it.
"So that Angelica is eavesdropping on us from outside."
"She was already stirring things up by saying you and I were a thing."
"I heard that too. It's a paparazzi episode. If you get caught, it's a mildly irritating part."
From what Vermel said next, it was a pointless episode. It was something the protagonist of the game set on this continent inevitably faced upon starting a romance.
...Huh?
Wait a moment.
"You said this happens when you have a romance here?"
"Right."
"Have you fooled around with some girl here?"
"You saw me. Before the Black Death, all I did was solo grind for items and act like a loner."
"Well, true."
Then it meant some trigger had been set off after the Black Death episode.
I scoffed and gave Vermel a sharp look. The elf looked back at me and smirked as well.
Smiling at each other face-to-face like this carried an unspoken meaning. It meant that we both had our suspicions, but if we thought it wasn't an important matter, we would just let it slide. Put simply, it was a gesture of mutual respect.
"No need to think of it too much like a game. This is reality, so something could happen even without romantic feelings being involved."
Most of all, the two of us had done something that obviously invited suspicion. Solving this problem wouldn't be easy.
To clear the misunderstanding, I needed strong evidence proving we weren't in that kind of relationship, but trying to explain it openly could backfire.
And that wasn't all. If I handled this wrong, there was a possibility that someone—Rosemary, or whatever—might discover Vermel's and my true identities.
But if I left this alone, the rumors would undoubtedly spread and become more grotesque....
"So, how do I shake off Angelica in this situation?"
"There are two ways to handle her. An easy one and a hard one. Which do you want?"
"Let's hear the easy one first."
"You and I openly date."
"You crazy bastard. Do you want us both expelled?"
Before even thinking about whether it would affect my gender identity as someone who'd become a girl, if rumors about us messing around on campus reached the higher-ups, my school life would be over that very day. I'd probably be dragged before a committee and put on trial.
At best, that was a hundred hours of community service. If I was really unlucky, expulsion.
"We could just lie and say we're only seeing each other off campus."
"As if they'd believe that when we were just in the club room doing this."
"The Board of Directors wouldn't know yet, so from now on we could just meet outside. But that would make things hard in its own way."
Exchanging information outside would probably solve the problem. Still, wouldn't getting harassed—well, not quite harassed—by my classmates become a foregone conclusion?
"Whatever."
Clicking my tongue, I took my ear away from the iron door.
I had absolutely no intention of admitting to a lie and agonizing over it in silence.
So.
"Hey. Grab your staff."
There was no choice but to take the hard road from the start.
**
Scope was a Unique Magic Art that emitted waves to form images and sounds of all objects within a 400-kilometer radius—Rosemary's exclusive domain.
Shortly after Aether returned to the capital, Rosemary had been operating Scope to follow her.
"Hm?"
Aether had begun talking with a roll-bun-haired young noblewoman who possessed a watermelon-sized chest.
No, calling it a 'conversation' was far too generous. It was excessively one-sided.
"What is with this woman."
There was no reason to hide her displeasure. The girl narrowed her brow sharply and scowled.
"That's Angelica Totsfel."
"Totsfel? Ah, was she the brat sired by one of the Four Great Dukes?"
"Why don't you know?"
"She's so lacking in presence that I overlooked her."
Rosemary didn't bother remembering anyone who wasn't an obstacle to the Demon King Resurrection Plan. That would be a waste of memory.
But that thought vanished in an instant.
"My big sister is having a romance with a lowly elf?"
At the words that Angelica woman was spouting beyond the Scope, a grinding sound came from between Rosemary's teeth.
"Tsk, tsk."
Blanton clicked his tongue as if he'd expected this.
"Didn't I mention it to you last time? I said it wasn't impossible that the advisor might be sharing affections with that elf."
"Even so, with an elf of all things...."
Elves. The race of the Goddess who directly received the spirits' blessings.
They were beings who existed in polar opposition to the Gold-Eye Tribe, who were rejected by all spirits.
"Those scum who serve as the Goddess's foot-wipers dare to try and romance my big sister? The world has gone mad!"
Rosemary gritted her teeth but kept watching Scope intently. From the looks of it, that Angelica creature seemed intent on making contact with the elf and her big sister in succession to mass-produce instant news.
The Commander of the Demon Army's Fourth Corps thought.
And before long, she quietly voiced that thought aloud.
"Crazy bitch. Can't we get rid of her somehow."
But Duke Blanton, who was beside her, had a slightly different idea.
"Isn't this a good thing?"
"What is?"
"If the fact that those two are in love spreads widely through the academy, the likelihood they'll face expulsion proceedings rises. On the contrary, if we play this well, I wonder if we might coax her back into the army more easily...."
Rosemary answered the adjutant's advice with a sigh.
"This is why you're stuck at the 7th Seat."
"My mind can't grasp it."
"Do you think my big sister wouldn't know a school rule like that? If it's that sister of mine, she'd definitely...."
"...Wait a moment. What is that?"
Before she could even begin speaking in earnest, Blanton pointed beyond the Scope with his finger. Angelica was taking something suspicious-looking out of Aether's backpack.
"What is that...?"
"To my eyes, they appear to be Magic Stones."
"What on earth did she bring back from the Saliere Territory?"
She was not particularly well-versed in Magic Stones.
Rosemary's areas of expertise were, after all, detection and guerrilla warfare, and scroll construction.
Even among the Great Machines of the Nine Heavens, there was unshared information, so she had no way of knowing what those were.
Eventually, after shaking off Angelica's pursuit, Aether headed for the house where Vermel was staying. Then she walked to the club room inside the academy with the elf, chatting as they went.
"Damn it. If you're going to have a private talk, do it at home! Why go to the club room during break!"
"Isn't it because the place isn't soundproofed?"
"Blanton, if you make one more annoying comment, I'll drive my violin bow through your skull."
"I'll correct myself. How will you handle that, then?"
Blanton's finger pointed at Angelica Totsfel.
She was currently outside the room Vermel and Aether had entered, pressing her ear against the iron door and holding her breath. Beside her were the second daughter of House Saliere and a short Fox Beastman.
"Wait a moment."
Rosemary's Scope Magic suffered a sharp drop in resolution in front of iron plates. It was due to electromagnetic principles. Scope could not penetrate the interior of a space whose six faces were surrounded by an iron network at all.
But she could still observe the reactions of those three people.
[D-Did you just hear that?]
[No. Probably not. There's no way. My friend wouldn't.]
[Mating?]
[Frey!]
At the short girl's bombshell remark, Rosemary's head rang. She felt as if she had been suddenly struck by a dirty bomb.
"I've.... seen more than enough."
With a snap of her fingers, the mirror projecting Scope vanished.
It had truly been a long time since she'd felt dizziness. Rosemary staggered to her feet like a patient given a terminal diagnosis and suddenly started packing her things.
"Blanton, issue an immediate summons to every humanoid comrade who has the time."
"Where shall the conference be held?"
"The Iron Fortress of Eight Formations."
There was no time to lose. If she couldn't solve this with one head, she would have to agonize over it with many.
Rosemary left immediately on a dispatch to the continent without delay.
That was why she did not see it.
The scene, during the gap when she canceled Scope and left the palace empty, of Aether bursting out the iron door and clubbing Angelica with her Calipers.