Chapter 186
Through the window before my eyes, the horizon and the skyline tangle together far in the distance.
Yes. I am in the sky.
Compared with the airship that carried me from Berne City to the royal castle, this one is very small. Even so, it is still the size of a little ship. The car that left from in front of our lodgings went straight into the military base encircling the castle, and from the dock we boarded the airship at once.
Now that I think of it, this world has flying machines in great numbers, too. That is because an unknown substance called flight-stone actually exists. According to some of the memories, it is a colony of microorganisms that float by means of mana; according to others, it is matter originally untouched by gravity, yet possessed of a tendency to cling to mana, and so it is often found on planets where mana has gathered.
There are all sorts of examples, but in this world they say mana of differing qualities exists, so that a thing will rise in one and sink in the other. An easy comparison: pour water and oil together, and the water goes down while the oil floats above. An object that sinks in oil and floats in water will gather along the boundary between them. Flight-stone, it seems, is that sort of substance. In short, the airships of this world are craft that move up and down by means of a material that rises only to a certain altitude.
It means mana has layers—or, at the very least, that there are kinds of mana which refuse to mix. But what would I know of it? I cannot use mana. From Yuanshi Tianzun's memories, I am probably a kind wholly opposed to mana, so that even if I died and woke again, wielding it would still be impossible. So I put such things out of mind and look around.
A transparent plate seals the front, and a pilot—or perhaps a captain—is steering from beyond it. Clockwork machines stand to the left and right, assisting with the controls. A single door divides the cockpit from the cabin. A large circular pane of glass in its center lets me see through, and the cabin itself has two seats to a side, like a bus. The difference is that each is a proper seat for one, and quite plush.
Polaris sits as if the place is familiar to her, resting. From Kanna's memories, nobles of any real wealth keep airships of their own, so there is nothing strange in her being used to one. Airships are simply hard to see in the capital. Aside from certain designated craft, any airship that comes within a set distance of the capital receives a single warning broadcast; if it keeps approaching, it is shot down at once. Kanna rode an airship when she went home, too, but to board it she first had to leave the capital and make for the place where the docks were gathered.
For the record, flying monsters and aerial bandits also exist in this world. That is why the airship we are riding carries defensive armaments.
Flash!
So if I watch through the window, it now and then looses a bolt of lightning at some living thing drawing near the hull. Lightning in midair is dangerous. Yes.
Setting that aside, if I consider where Victoria lies…
Ah.
We have already come south of Victoria. The sky road is certainly far faster than going by land. But I cannot let that show, so I stay quietly in my seat. Polaris, perhaps finding me awkward, does not speak to me either, and the only sound is the faint turning of the aircraft's clockwork. Unlike me, with countless cinema channels running at all hours, this will be a rather dull journey for Polaris. My concept is to answer in good faith when spoken to, and not to start a conversation when I am not. Barring something truly out of the ordinary, it ought to be a quiet trip.
Yes.
Barring something truly out of the ordinary.
The incident came as Berne City drew near.
"Aaaagh!"
Up ahead.
Without the slightest warning, the little window that offers a glimpse of the cockpit floods red, together with the scream. Anyone could see it: more blood than a lethal dose. The only person up there is the pilot. Until a moment ago, no monster had appeared in front of us, and no airborne foe had forced its way aboard. That would make it a locked-room murder. But this is a world where things that are not people can kill people all the same.
Crunch!
Though it has hands perfectly capable of opening a door, a clockwork machine comes out of the cockpit with its hostility on full display, its whole front drenched in blood. Contrary to what I know, its optical sensors are not glowing red or anything of the sort. Even so, anyone could tell that the one who killed the person was the machine.
Crash!
The instant it emerges, a chair is driven into its face and bursts apart. The one who threw the chair is none other than Polaris. I had thought most people in this land were gentle, and yet so many of them meet danger without losing their grip. No—that isn't quite right. They do shake. Her face is full of panic and fear, and the shock has landed. She is forcing all of it down.
If I lower my eyes a little and look at the floor, the chairs are screwed firmly in place. Which means she tore this one out with her bare hands and threw it. This chair.
Kreeee—
Steel tears again, and the chair caught in Polaris's hands rips free of the floor. Ah. So the frames are iron. Polaris starts to say something, but what comes out is a shrill little sound. She clears her throat several times, straightens her back, and puts on the look of someone who was not flustered in the slightest.
"Bell, it's dangerous, so don't go near the door. What is this, an assassination?"
"Doesn't it feel more like a revolt of the machines?"
Clack.
A sound comes from behind us. I turn, and a doll-shaped clockwork, likewise soaked in blood, is walking this way with what appear to be the remains of organs stuffed into a half-smashed kettle. Now that I think of it, there were several crew aboard when we came on. Those look like their remains. That.
"Someone's controlling the clockwork?"
"There isn't a chance they've gained minds of their own?"
"A machine? That's impossible. They can make judgments up to a point, but it's insect-level. Maybe if it were the latest clockwork—but the one in front of us looks pretty old. Someone definitely gave an order."
Even counting the faded memories, intelligence of this sort is… hmm. No. There is more of it than I thought. If anything, it is strange that the worlds inside those faded memories developed as far as they did and still had no artificial intelligence of this kind.
Tap-tap.
Then the blood-soaked clockwork, half-broken kettle in hand, charges at Polaris.
Bang!
But Polaris, chair raised, swats it aside.
Thud!
It hits the wall and sticks there. It must be fairly durable; it rattles and strains to pull itself free of where it is lodged, but it hasn't the output to drag its body out of the crumpled iron plate, and so it only thrashes.
"How many are in there?"
"I don't know."
"You're no help."
Polaris walks carefully toward the rear. She stops before she reaches the cabin's back door.
Three clockwork machines, drenched in blood.
They have burst out of that door. Behind them I can see a single corpse, a great deal of its skin already peeled away. I look to Polaris at once. It is a dreadful sight for a girl to see, and I am worried—but Polaris only stares at the clockwork, cold and level.
The machines creak as they walk toward her. Then, all at once, their springs scream into a violent spin, and they rush her.
Bang!
The first strikes the chair and its body crumples. She ducks the hand of the next machine as it comes right after, and in the same motion she spins, driving a kick into its head.
Crack!
The head tears clean off the torso. But the last of the three catches Polaris around the body while she is still turning in the air.
Is this the part where she gets harvested?
BOOM!
Wow.
The moment the clockwork seizes her torso, the leg still spinning on the momentum of that earlier kick comes all the way around. Like a snake crawling, she wraps her legs about the machine's head and shoulders, catches hold, and slams the whole of it into the floor. Action and reaction do exist, it seems: Polaris shoots up into the air, almost comically. But that, too, appears to be part of her plan. She catches the ceiling, drops to a spot a little aside, and settles into a martial stance. Then she goes to the clockwork that is staggering upright despite having had its head driven into the floor—being a machine—and springs lightly up to bring a strike down.
Eek.
This time the head is not hammered into the floor. The frame that served as a skull shatters, and fragments of spring scatter in every direction. Her build is the same as Rebecca's, so why does it burst as if a bear had brought a forepaw down? Then again, Rebecca near the end could do things like that as well. After I left, Rebecca began to move again somehow, with neither light nor warmth, and when I saw her long afterward she had grown tremendously strong. Since mana exists, does raw physical force receive some sort of correction? I turn the curious phenomenon over in my mind as I watch Polaris go out through the door at the back of the cabin. I follow her.
"Don't come in!"
The moment I take hold of the door, a threatening voice comes from inside. The tone is less it's dangerous, stay out than there's something revolting, and I can't let you see it. I go in anyway.
Polaris's back is before me, and a thick smell of blood follows, stinging my nose. The fist clenched at her side, seen from behind, has gone white. A shattered corpse is scattered all through the corridor. From the pieces, it seems to be one person…
Ah. No.
Beneath a plaque, a single hand juts out through the gap in the door.
Polaris has seen it too. She walks over and stops there. I walk over as well, and while I am at it I step lightly on the corpse and take the warmth still faintly left in it. The memories are broken in places, as one would expect of a corpse, but they come into me. I check what happened a little while ago.
Something about an emergency flight, about being dragged aboard in a hurry and feeling sorry for themselves. Not this. The memory from just before death…
Ah. Found it.
They were chatting—why were they suddenly bound for Berne City with two children aboard?—when the clockwork that helped with the small tasks slowly closed in around them, and they died with no time at all to respond. Even as the machines surrounded them, they thought there must simply be some task at hand and never suspected a thing. That made it all the more fatal.
Polaris backs out through the door. Little by little her face comes into view, pale and set hard.
"Bell."
"We ought to confirm what happened."
Hearing my footsteps, she calls my name to tell me not to come. But I go in past her, telling myself the reason may be inside. There are two more. Pretending to search the corpses, I take the warmth that is vanishing from them. A body that has not been dead for long still holds, quite literally, the warmth of the dead. It is terribly faint, and the memories that arrive are broken, but still.
"All three of them died in an ambush."
"Three?"
"Including the corridor."
Polaris nods, stricken. That was when it happened. The hull jolts hard, and the inertia swings upward.
"We're falling, aren't we?"
"I think so."
At my words, Polaris's face goes pale. But we have not lost our lift entirely. If we had, this would be weightlessness; right now we are simply descending. Someone is still at the controls. Come to think of it, there were clockwork machines on both sides of the pilot, and only one of them came out.
I head for the cockpit.
"Where are you going?"
"The cockpit."
Polaris follows, with the air of someone thinking, So that was an option. My first goal is to reach the pilot's warmth before it cools. There is no reason to explain all of that at length, so I go forward as if I mean to resolve the situation.