The Red Demon Who Cradled a Star (2)
The Lucky Box.
The girl could not hide the trembling in her eyes as she stared at the box before her. To her, the meaning of a lucky box was anything but simple.
…
To a girl who could not escape her cramped cage, the Interdimensional Integrated Community had truly become a whole new world.
And yet—
No one else can see it. No one but me.
Could it be that I'm seeing things that aren't there?
Have I truly gone mad, just as they said…?
She couldn't help the doubts creeping in. What if it was all nothing but her own delusion?
Locked in a narrow cage, dragged from one end of the Empire to the next, pelted with stones and lashed with whips — no mind could stay sound through such a life. Precocious though she was for her age, she was, in the end, only human. Perhaps her mind had already broken long ago.
Because no one else knew of the Interdimensional Integrated Community. No one else had ever seen it. She had no way even to verify whether anything she had learned through it was real.
However hard she tried to steady her heart, the suspicion blooming in a corner of her mind refused to be stamped out — all the more so as the violence inflicted on her grew fiercer by the day.
And then, right before the eyes of a girl who had wavered endlessly between faith and disbelief, a solid, undeniable piece of proof had appeared out of nowhere. Small wonder she had stood frozen in place for so long.
"Th-this is…"
She knew full well how the community had been set abuzz by the Admin's recent stunt, and she had recognized the box before her at a glance for what it was — a Lucky Box.
She clutched it to her chest. Tears spilled freely from her fierce eyes.
"Thank goodness. Thank goodness…"
She was so, so grateful.
"Because it isn't a world only I remember. Because it isn't a delusion only I carry."
That single fact alone felt like salvation.
Inside the Lucky Box were a pill bottle and a comically ridiculous clown doll.
"Haha."
To think that that insufferably arrogant Admin had packed such a palm-sized doll into the box alongside hair-loss medication — Virdel couldn't help but laugh.
She raised a trembling hand and poked at the clown doll.
"A fine gift."
Just one more doll added to her bleak, iron-barred world — and yet somehow, the loneliness seemed to recede a little. Though the hair-loss medication sitting beside it had yet to prove its usefulness.
"I have no idea why everyone's carrying on like that, anyway."
She had no way of knowing the hearts of the Balmen faithful. Leaving the fantastical leap of imagination for which those people would gladly have paid fortunes tucked away in a corner, she turned her attention to the clown doll.
"Shall I give you a name?"
A bone-white face. A red nose. Long, torn red lips. A child might well have found it terrifying, yet somehow Virdel felt the doll suited her rather well.
"That's right. Because I'm a clown too, just like you…"
A clown for a billion imperial citizens.
She stroked the doll gently with her fingertip, somehow fond of it already. It was a touch harder than your average doll.
Suddenly, the clown doll flinched.
"?"
Hm? Had she imagined that? It had definitely seemed to move for a second there. But Virdel, whose eyesight was poor, carelessly dismissed it as a trick of her eyes.
And then—
Clang— creak—
A middle-aged man came in carrying a hard lump of bread and a dish of water.
The girl twisted her body to hide the doll behind her. But there was only so much a small frame could conceal.
"Hm? What's that thing behind you?"
The girl flinched. The man dropped the bread and water carelessly on the floor and strode straight toward her. She did her best to hold herself together and play it cool, but—
"Has this bitch lost her mind!"
Smack—
Strength drained from her limbs, and she was sent rolling across the cold iron floor.
"Hooh… now what's this?"
Trembling, she tried to push herself up, only to be kicked and sent rolling once more.
Thwack—
"Someone came by while I was gone, did they? That shouldn't be possible…"
When she finally managed to turn her head and open her eyes, the man was holding the box and the pill bottle, studying them with a grave expression. In his eyes, suspicion mingled with naked greed.
Perhaps that was why he stopped the beating.
"Glasswork this fine makes a man wonder what's inside. And the box itself is no ordinary piece, either…"
The man broke off mid-sentence and swept his gaze over every corner of the cell floor.
"Did someone visit you? Is there nothing else?"
He interrogated her, whip in hand, but her mouth showed no intention of opening. Weary at last, the man gathered up the box and the bottle.
"I'll finish asking when I'm back. You'd best tell the truth."
Having loomed over her menacingly, he hurried out of the cell with a chuckle.
The girl gave a faint smile through bloodied lips.
Because just before the man's eyes could find it, she had seen the doll move of its own accord — and turn transparent.
Unlike her, it seemed to have slipped free of this dreadful place unharmed. And so Virdel smiled, this time in relief.
Karlstein scratched his head.
"Was there anything on the item list you'd call a friend?"
"We sent food, daily necessities, cosmetics, luxury goods, weapons, even warships — everything we could think of, without restriction, for testing purposes. But no living organisms."
"And the transmission results?"
"Of the 10,212 dimensions where we've picked up signals, fewer than zero point one percent succeeded."
"Hmm. The results seem rather poor…"
"It's still the testing phase. Once we install relays and amplifiers centered on the dimensions where material transmission has already succeeded, it should be easily resolved."
According to Aria, the dimensions were woven together much like a spider's web. To connect gateways spanning every dimension, they would need amplifiers to boost the signal and relays to extend its reach, installed at dimensional waypoints capable of serving as bridges.
"Then the little friends we've hidden away will have to do their jobs properly."
"They're likely in hiding even now, assessing their surroundings and preparing to transmit their first signals."
The AI-driven reconnaissance devices — near-clones of Aria, each wearing its own distinct form — had been scattered across the various dimensions, mixed in among the event items.
"Honestly, sitting around waiting meekly for reviews doesn't suit my temperament."
"Once they're in position, we will be able to confirm not only signal links and video feeds, but everything the target sees, hears, and feels."
"Like that… lich fellow, was it?"
"Yes."
Through the nanomachines hidden inside the hair wax the Lich King had received, Karlstein's side had once forced a brief one-way connection. The fellow had never seemed to notice.
Karlstein shook his head with a look of sheer disdain.
On the screen, an ancient lich was toiling away in a laboratory layered with countless magic circles, pouring its very soul into analyzing the hair wax and the hair-loss medication.
"I'd be grateful if they opened a passage from their end, but at that rate, who knows when they'll manage it."
The video feed had cut off almost immediately, a casualty of the nanomachines' power limitations, and there was nothing more to observe.
Somehow, they seemed to have adapted and repurposed the camera function of the Interdimensional Integrated Community, though even Karlstein didn't know the exact principles behind it. He had simply worked his subordinates under Minister Makia and Vice Minister Kahlen to the bone, over and over again.
"Right. I'll just have to wait with a little patience."
What he wanted to know was who had received which items. But none of them were bothering to report properly, and that was the problem.
"I suppose I didn't include those freebies for nothing."
True, a couple more verification posts had gone up since DemonKingVirdel's. The trouble was that both of them consisted of nothing but gushing praise for the hair-loss medication.
(generic before-and-after hair photos.jpg)
Do you see?
Say it with me, everyone. Balmen.
From then on, the community boiled over with nothing but talk of the hair-loss medication. In particular, a crowd calling themselves the Balmen Cult began flooding the boards with hair photos that bordered on cursed images.
He can't live like this, can he?
It was much like trying to reason with a crowd devoured whole by madness. The Balmen Cult's frenzy, refreshing itself by the fraction of a second, had even Karlstein shaking his head — and briefly setting aside his water-quality management, no less.
"Anyway, next up is that 'DemonKingVirdel' character's turn, isn't it?"
"Yes. The signal is stabilizing steadily. We should be able to grasp her situation shortly."
"Let's take it easy, then. There's no rush."
But contrary to Karlstein's expectations, Virdel's situation was already rushing headlong toward crisis.
