A Hymn of the Betrayed — 3

Today's sun had set. Even the last quiet heat of the afterglow was gone, and a cold night had come in its place.

The place was a shambles, and still, by the time night fell, not a single person had set foot inside the clockwork knight school. The reason was plain enough, written in the flames rising all across the capital.

They had scattered for a little while at the cry of plague, but no one had actually died. By then they had already smashed everything that could be smashed and killed everyone who could be killed. This was a place where the hunt was over.

The citizens who had turned rioter never truly suffered. Where there is no pain, there is no learning. People are creatures who find it hard to learn unless they hurt, and those who never received the pain that would have told them their actions were wrong thought, once they had scattered, in terms like these.

Becoming a mob had won them nothing, and reality stood exactly as it had. So they did the same thing again. It wasn't that the premise had been wrong. They had simply failed to kill every last enemy.

The citizens of the capital poured back out into the streets. Someone had said a plague was going around, but hardly anyone had seen a person actually collapse. They had only run because others ran, shouting plague as they went. What you cannot feel, what has no clear substance, is not frightening, and set beside a plague that might not even exist, the reality they were feeling now hurt more. So they came back outside.

Watching through the Harvesters' eyes, I wondered what they meant to fix upon as their next target. The easy enemy — the clockwork knight school — had already been destroyed to the last, hadn't it?

So I watched to see how they would manage it. And — wow. Their gift for manufacturing a genuine enemy was extraordinary. Deeply inventive.

The people of this world are built with the function of using mana. Which is to say, they can feel it. Even the untrained, if they are sensitive, sense the flow of mana quite well, and everyone living in the capital knows how to use at least a bare minimum of it, because the older clockwork machines will not run without mana. To turn a machine you need mana, and in that moment you learn the feel of it flowing. They could hardly fail to know. It had been ordinary life.

Apply to that the axiom that every machine is evil, and it comes out like this.

Yes.

In a winter this cold, clockwork machines cannot be cast aside entirely. The houses themselves were built on the premise that clockwork machines would be inside them, and a person can sense a power unit drinking mana in. So what happens?

They attacked. I don't know the precise feeling. Most likely it was this: we threw our clockwork machines away and live in hardship, so why are you still using yours? Those houses, besides, belonged to people whose means were decent enough — the so-called upper class, meaning the upper class among commoners. There was reason to envy them. They were also places with a great deal worth taking.

It happened to be evening, and in house after house people had switched on their power units to cook. Easy to find. They went in, murdered everyone inside, and came back out carrying whatever was expensive.

Some of them had their doubts ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at that point. They brainwashed themselves regardless.

Among those acting this way were people who knew the truth and shut their mouths, pretending they did not, because they looked at anyone who claimed to be in the right the way one looks at a foolish idiot. Curiously, the ones who knew the truth and closed their eyes behaved even worse. They stirred people up, steered them toward houses that looked expensive, and made off with the costliest things there. A person intelligent enough to grasp the truth does not set the situation right. They make correct use of it.

Truly clever. Speak the truth in a place like that and you are as good as dead, so better to mix into the crowd and squeeze out as much profit as you can. And so the people furious at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠their present lot, their minds gone sick, ran wild.

As flames leapt up all over the capital, those whose work was keeping the peace began to move, this way and that. At first they did. But this had not broken out inside any single group. Most of the people living in the capital had already sickened over a long time, in hunger and cold, and there were far too few in the constabulary to do anything about so many of the sick.

Order, at its root, can be kept only when the citizens who live there cooperate as they should. Once that citizenry, all of it, turns enemy, not even a constabulary can stop it. The premise itself has collapsed. So, in order to live, they let go of the work of safety for society as a whole, and decided they would protect only the safety of a select few.

The collapse of order takes an instant.

Now, with the sun fully down, nearly the whole of the capital was already burning from arson. People abandon the future with a simplicity that borders on idiocy. No — they had not abandoned the future. In their own fashion, they had made the best choice available to them. The end of that choice was the collapse of society.

Robbery of that kind kept spreading, because looting the houses of the upper class who still used clockwork machines yielded not only wealth but food. Here, class and population describe a pyramid. The poorer they are, the more numerous they are. Across the whole capital, murder and arson and plunder spread like wildfire.

The age moves on along a road that cannot be walked back. And when an age changes, many people die.

I turned my gaze and went to Victoria, crouched among the corpses. She knew I had come to her side, but she did not stir at all, her head bowed.

It was about time she broke. Too much had happened, and until now there had been no one to save her. It is too hard a thing for a single person to bear. Even so, I had expected her anger to deliver me a great quantity of warmth, and I had not thought she would kill no one at all. I believed she was already used to killing. From Nantes Harbor all the way to Berne City, I know precisely how many people died at Victoria's hands. I received their warmth, and their memories. A murderer who had already slaughtered innocents without number, sunk in gloom because people had died.

"Bell, what am I supposed to do?"

Victoria asked me, her voice thick as iron grinding on iron.

"Weren't you angry with me?"

Oh my.

I thought this was where the bond ended, and here she is, speaking. Or has she broken now, and wants the comfort of it?

Mmm— mm— mm—

Heh.

Let her depend on me like this, and I could use her however I pleased!

I won't.

I went and stood before Victoria, who kept her head bowed in silence. And I wait for her to speak.

After a long silence, Victoria opened her mouth.

"I'm angry."

And silence again.

Her eyes were moving. She was assembling the words in her head. Mm. This is certainly comfortable. Even with my head lowered, the Harvesters cannot get away from me.

I already have everything. What more would I be taking? I've already eaten. The warmth is still inside her, of course, but that only looks deferred. It is already finished — the sort of thing that, from a macroscopic view, Daegon and Yuanshi Tianzun alike would call horrific, every one of them.

The more foolish someone is, the more easily they can say that my taking the warmth is nothing at all. But that amounts to this: eat this, and you'll be tremendously happy — what could possibly be the problem? It is a drug, and with every dose you are only experiencing a violent pleasure while it destroys your brain cells. All that remains is a wretched future. Fellow addicts, though, would say it anyway. Right? As long as you're happy now, isn't that enough?

That is it. Only someone who can see things macroscopically knows that a life has taken an unhappy ending into its hands. Look only at what lies just ahead, and nothing shows but the profit called pleasure.

That is warmth.

I am not so vicious as to seize anything further from a person who, as far as I am concerned, is already finished. Thinking that, I wait for Victoria's words, my heart gone snug and warm from the Harvesters far off, rejoicing as they kill, and from the warmth streaming in through them.

"But how am I supposed to let the anger out?"

Now this. A philosophical question. It isn't as though she has truly never been angry. She has been, many times. During a school break she once raged at Beatrice and went a whole day without food — angry over some trivial, dreary reason, then scolded, then sorry. But that isn't what she means.

"Am I just supposed to kill them all? Is revenge enough, for the teachers and friends who died so miserably? If I'd set myself to it, I could have. Killing people is too easy now."

Mm. So in the end, what she's saying is that it's too easy. No — she really did draw the fluids out through the lungs and drop people unconscious, so it truly would be easy. Dig through the memories of the Harvesters gained in this world, and the answer is simple. Blocking it with magic is possible, in itself. But it is a technique that kills you if you don't know it, especially because the mana does not move at all, and so the warning is hard to see coming.

"But out there, you were saving people."

Her tone was almost as if she had meant, originally, to kill them. Strange. The one who chose not to kill anyone, earlier, was Victoria.

"Earlier — why did you choose not to kill them?"

I was happy enough, it being the hour for mass-producing Harvesters, but the one who chose not to kill was Victoria, wasn't it?

At my question she buried her face in her arms and brought out a voice scraped raw.

"Because you... did it that way."

Me? When?

Ah. Yes. Of course. Making a Harvester, seen from the outside, looks like nothing other than saving a person.

"I never forced that on you."

"Yeah. I know. You always say do whatever you want, and then, in words, you just leave us alone."

Victoria lifted her head as she said it.

"And all the while, you showed us a path that looked admirable. You did that on purpose, didn't you? Telling us to make the good choice — to watch, and learn, and think it through ourselves, and do it that way. You were trying to lead me, weren't you? So..."

She said it with a pleading face.

"Tell me what I'm supposed to do."

An expression that accuses me of already knowing the way, and refusing to say it.

First, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠misunderstanding. I ought to settle this part for certain.

"Victoria Vett. Do what you want to do. Don't make someone else think in your place — think for yourself. I have no intention of leading you, and I was never anyone fit to lead in the first place. To begin with, I am not a person."

Lest there be any mistake.