Deep Beneath That Sea — 8
In the end, a week passed after that with nothing happening at all.
For all that I had tossed them a witch's treasure, there was remarkably little movement. Of course, the thing they would call a treasure was a cruel, merciless weapon. If they were human, I trusted they would put it to splendid use.
Perhaps they had already sent a handful of people ahead and claimed every last piece of the witch's treasure. But within the limits of what I know, learning whether they had would mean going back to that place myself.
The valuables that had been in the castle?
Those were nothing more than metal. If I were willing to let the world break, I could make a lump of gold the size of the sun. Why would I need any of it? I don't have much in the way of material desire.
If the flesh were nothing more than a game avatar, there might at least have been some fun in dressing it up. But this is not that kind of place. It is like the making of a curse: starved for days, buried in the earth with only your head left above ground, food set at a distance no effort can reach. And even knowing you can never reach it, you also know that the moment you stretch your tongue toward that food, your throat will be cut.
So I endure. If there is a reason, I can bear it.
Grit my teeth and hold on like that, and a faint warmth does, in truth, come in—steady, constant. Patience earned me a reward. I take that as my pillar and endure with everything I have. Still, smelling it is allowed, isn't it? Looking at it is all right, isn't it?
So, just a little more actively.
I make Harvesters.
That is the state I am in. Put me through a psychiatric evaluation and anyone would say I was going mad. Therefore, material things do not matter. The only thing that is everything is the hope that warmth will be given to me from here on.
There is that feeling, and honestly, once you reach a state where you can knead reality in your hands, things of that material sort truly cease to interest you. There is the trivial defect that the shock of it can shatter reality. Knowledge, rather, is more precious.
Perhaps turning people into Harvesters has an element of collecting knowledge in it as well. The memories that shine keep multiplying.
It isn't that the memories are alive, with the feeling of a consciousness asking, could it be this? It is closer to a search engine turning over every instant, underlining the word you searched and offering it up: Is this what you were looking for? There is, though, a strangely uniform way they gleam in certain situations. I suspect that is because they share the same experience. Or else, like Maleficent, they are fresh memories, not long since acquired, and the moment I search they are referenced at once.
Anyway. My memory is good, and my ability to search is excellent.
Do you know what that gets you?
"I will be collecting the exam papers."
"Gyaaaaaah~"
I can manage a test passably well without studying.
The day after a week of school closure came to an end, they sprang an exam the moment class began. Not even a quiz—midterms. From morning the teacher made a vicious announcement, and the light went out of the eyes of students who had only just returned to the classroom. This morning was nothing but the scratch of pens, grief and despair clutched tight.
For my part, I solved the problems easily. Questions we were never taught, or ones that required application, might be another matter, but simple memorization is no trouble. Still, this being the Royal Academy, straightforward problems made up only half. Miss every difficult one and you sit at fifty percent. I wrote everything I could, so I ought to manage at least the average.
That aside, until the exam was over, no one registered that Merryweather had vanished. The air was as if no such person had ever existed. She had even disappeared from the attendance roll. Which is also to say that Maleficent had been a powerful mage.
According to Maleficent's memories, manipulate cognition and documents that never existed come into being. It was not magic that vaguely resembled the discipline called science. It was magic on the level of the world itself truly changing. So it seems no one knew. Even if there had been something she was meant to receive, it became a matter of I'm not certain, but I believe I already received it, so let it pass. Unless a fatal contradiction arose—something like a search for the fragments of Merryweather's corpse—it would not be easily broken, she says.
This witch.
Against a human, she was a witch strong enough to wear you out.
If it had been a human.
Against a great dragon, after a chaotic fight, considerably—no. Mm. There are, they say, techniques specialized for disposing of beings like this. Nothing is easier to catch than a powerful specimen that has never fought anything like itself, and so has never even realized its own weaknesses.
After all, the moment you drop a single tier, from apex predator to merely an upper one, being slaughtered in an instant is not so strange a thing. You might think it is only one more appearing over your head, but there are plenty of creatures that lived for hundreds of generations on islands without a natural enemy, and the moment an enemy arrived could do nothing, and went extinct. If it is not engraved into the survival instinct from the start, you vanish meaninglessly.
Even Maleficent, whose intelligence itself had seemed outstanding, was like that, it seems. Even Yuanshi Tianzun holds several memories of subjugating such wicked specimens. Cross-check them, and surprisingly, the ones who were strong from birth, who have never tasted failure, who are nothing but powerful, are generally called gifts. Gifts in the sense that they supply materials.
A world brimming with the will to kill is a frightening thing.
Anyway.
The exam ended, and I was about to go to Victoria, who sat there with her soul gone, when someone blocked my way.
Friesia Tabakian Shekal.
She stood before me with the triangular ears rising from her head pricked sharp.
"Bell. Lady Theodore is calling for you."
Stiff, but far softer than before. Ah, come to think of it—when Canna returned to the capital over the weekend, she had told Friesia to bring me. It was the next day, so I had forgotten.
"Yes."
I gave a small wave to Victoria, who would have to go to the Clockwork Knight school once evening came, and followed Friesia out. Left of the central hall from the main gate. Straight west, a ninety-degree turn to the left, then straight on. Of the many rooms that appeared, we entered the innermost.
"You're here?"
Oh? Canna Tamerlane Theodore?
I had thought she hadn't changed, but hearing her with my own ears, she was different. Her voice was a full three-tenths brighter than the last time we met. Whether that was because she had tried to throw over House Theodore and they had clung to her in desperation, or because the mere fact of being able to move her body and do something felt good, or both, I couldn't say. The air of resignation that had stuck to her was gone completely, and only a bright, refreshing beauty remained.
Hmm~?
Mmm. Watching on and on through that person's eyes might, more than I thought, make the person herself difficult to read. The me who watched from Canna's point of view thinks Canna has not changed so very much. But comparing her directly like this, in front of me, the difference is unmistakable. Is it like how people can hardly feel themselves growing fat unless they see it in numbers? With all five senses synchronized, was it only that a slow change was hard to perceive?
To think I would come to know a defect in this way. Watching through that person's eyes was not a perfect technique.
That is that. First, a greeting.
"Hello."
"You truly haven't changed. Come, sit."
Friesia quietly bowed her head and went out. Canna glanced after her once, looking regretful. But the moment the door closed she turned at once and walked to a nearby tea cart laden with refreshments and a kettle. And, where my eyes could see, she poured tea into an empty cup.
Consulting Canna's memories, this is how it is done when nobles meet. The reason? Poison. Hidden inside it, besides, is a shadowy little courtesy: I am giving you this—can you tell what it is? There are follow-up procedures, such as being treated as an ignorant person if you fail to return some reply along the lines of how fine it is that they used this ingredient. I ignore all of it cleanly. Canna pays no mind to such things either.
On her side, etiquette is already engraved into the soul, so the act itself is only natural. Rather, the flicker of disgust that rose at our first meeting was self-disgust. According to the memories, it was not aimed at me.
Reading emotions isn't perfect either. The reason my heart doesn't drop, even when I find a defect in a tool I have been using, is that until now I have only ever made passive, safety-minded choices. Mm. If I had run wild, declaring that since I could know people's emotions this way, winning their hearts was simple, I really would have made a fatal mistake somewhere.
In practice, I ignore entirely the courtesy an ordinary noble would be expected to observe, and she is not displeased even when I drink what she offers.
"Is it good? It's something we drink often near home, but it's hard to come by here, so I brought a great deal."
For reference, near the home Canna means, they mix high-proof liquor into this and drink it. And the one who drank it that way was Canna. When she drinks alone in her room, she takes it hometown-style. This person. For reference, in this world neither alcohol nor tobacco is forbidden to minors. Taken in the proper amount, they are treated instead as medicine good for the health.
"Are you properly doing the things you want to do?"
I let a beat pass, then asked. At my words Canna blinked a few times, then smiled wide.
"Yes. I'm doing everything I want, to my heart's content."
"Then it was worth giving myself to you."
If it were up to my desire, I would prefer the established powers a little filthier, moving about stuffed with greed for things. But I have loosened my grip somewhat where the Harvesters of the present age are concerned. Supply is coming out of Berne City, and rebel groups are being made in real time, so blood will run in rivers. It will surely be warm.
Hehe.
"If anything, I'm the one who should be grateful. And you—I hear you had quite the fight with a terrifying witch in the capital. How was it?"
Ah.
I see. This is what she wanted to ask. There is no noble plot or scheme hidden in it. She is looking at me with eyes sparkling from pure curiosity as she asks. And the distance of her heart toward me has shrunk enormously. So I thought a little would be all right, and I spoke while shaping Maleficent's present form with my hands.
"Maleficent became a crown. Like this."
"Ah……. I… see."
The distance of her heart opened again.