Chapter 374

Chapter 362

The mage lifted his head. The light subsided, and the contours of his face gradually came into view. He swept back the long hair obscuring his vision, gripped his staff firmly, and looked straight ahead.

"......"

Mecklenburg felt the blood drain toward the floor as he stared at him, transfixed. It was a chilling sight. Even the irises were the same color as his skin, and for some reason, not even pupils were visible. How could a person's eyes be white? Were even his irises transparent, like the light he radiated? No. If his irises truly held no pigment and were entirely empty, those eyes should not be white—they should rightly be red. Yes, like....

The blood-red eyes that had looked straight at him flickered through his mind. Then, through Mecklenburg's head passed the day he had first encountered Nicolaus Ernst's Divine Power. The Divine Power he'd witnessed from him was something he would never forget for as long as he lived. He couldn't tell whether that Divine Power and this light could be compared, but at the very least, overlapping with a clear, intense light reminiscent of Nicolaus's, these pure white eyes looked instead like a token of holiness.

Sanctity and dread are separated by a hair's breadth. And so, before the dread that overwhelmed his heart, Mecklenburg intuited: that was an artificial purity.

His Excellency the Chancellor looked at the Metropolitan Archbishop and asked in a frigid voice.

"Even having passed the checkpoint, warping into the Imperial Palace without authorization is impossible."

"That is correct."

The Metropolitan Archbishop of Brandenburg answered slowly.

"'Technically' impossible. It concentrates the Empire's finest technology, after all. If I myself were told to warp into this room from outside, I would never succeed, and neither would anyone else."

"Explain the circumstances. Since you have compromised our security, however much you may be diplomatic envoys, we can place you under investigation right here and now."

"Is it not that we compromised your security, but that it was broken long ago? Or—"

The Metropolitan Archbishop of Brandenburg interlaced his fingers and manufactured a smile on his wrinkled face.

"Do you not consider that your security remained perfectly intact, but that a mage capable of surpassing it might exist?"

"......"

A single mage who looked no older than his teens possessed the ability to set foot in a nation's imperial palace at will. The messenger of the covenant—considering they'd borrowed an expression referring to the LORD himself, this surely wasn't the whole of it. With a single step he could stand in the middle of the Hall of Mirrors that the Prussian army had reached only after untold struggle, and he could plant Pleroma's flag in the Kremlin as well. Had he lived in the turbulent Middle Ages, the Crusades would have retaken Jerusalem, and the Hagia Sophia would have remained a cathedral of the Eastern Orthodox Church to this day. Was this conjecture excessive? Faced with an ability that neutralized every form of security, could anyone say it was excessive? Even in the 98th Class Team A, where Mecklenburg himself served, there was an ability-holder who could warp at will without coordinates—but while that ability-holder could easily bypass security magic on a door, he could not set foot in a place where security magic covered the entire grounds. Extraordinary. Everyone would know it already, not just Mecklenburg. The Metropolitan Archbishop swept his gaze over all our faces and spoke.

"Are there any berserk reports currently filed in the Empire? I should like to demonstrate his ability."

"......"

The Chancellor watched the Metropolitan Archbishop in silence, then gestured to his aide. The aide hurried out of the room to send a telegram, received a reply, and returned.

"Near Cecilienhof in Brandenburg, at 189:231:238, there is a Grade 3 Berserker. The 98th Class Team B has been deployed and is currently subduing it."

The Metropolitan Archbishop nodded in satisfaction and sought the Chancellor's consent. The Chancellor spoke.

"On the premise that no harm comes to our subjects, permission is granted."

"Proceed there."

The moment the Metropolitan Archbishop's words ended, the pure white mage struck the floor with his staff and vanished from the room. When the Metropolitan Archbishop swept his hand through the air, a video appeared, wrapping around the center of the table. It was footage unfolding through someone's field of vision, and whose vision it was needed no explanation. The stunned faces of the 98th Class Team B members came into view. The owner of the vision walked slowly, taking their attacks head-on. When the Berserker, which had been leaping about in a frenzy in the distance, charged at the front of the vision, a pure white hand wreathed in light rose from below the frame. It touched the Vitriol.

CRASH—

The sound of wind was heard.

[—Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.]

An eerily floating song spread faintly. In an instant, the Vitriol of the Berserker he'd touched vanished, and an unconscious person was revealed. The moment the Berserker collapsed, the mage reappeared in the room.

"......"

Silence flowed. The Metropolitan Archbishop of Brandenburg spoke slowly in his rough voice.

"We shall transfer all authority to the Empire until our true prophet comes of age. We hope it has been conveyed how much we are willing to give up for the German Empire."

No one spoke. That everyone had acted with caution because no one had ever participated in such an abnormal diplomatic scene no longer mattered. This was now a situation where no one, whoever they might be, should speak rashly.

'Handing over the messenger of the covenant...?'

Why? He couldn't know what exactly the messenger of the covenant did or what abilities the being possessed, but wasn't it certain that he was essential to their soteriology? And yet these people were now saying they would hand their prophet over to us. However much they needed to earn the Empire's trust, was there reason to shoulder even this burden? Mecklenburg found himself looking at the seat where Nicolaus Ernst had been sitting. A thought that wounded his pride abruptly struck through his head.

'...Askanian would have....'

He would have grasped this situation instantly, and then some. With the judgment he'd shown at the command and in Brandenburg, in Corniviano. With Nicolaus Ernst's intelligence network. It stung. It stung, but he surely would have found the answer.

His Excellency the Chancellor looked at the mage and spoke.

"What is this person's name?"

The chances of them revealing his true name were low, but we had to find out which family's mage he was and trace their genealogy. For example, the Metropolitan Archbishop of Brandenburg had introduced himself earlier as Lilly Lebenro, and this surname Lebenro belonged to a noble family holding land in Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg. If he hadn't lied, descendants sharing genes or magic power with that Pleroma would be living on Schleswig-Holstein land.

"Mikhail Vladimirovich Ismailov."

"......"

Someone they found in Russia.

Moreover, with a name like that, the name itself must have been newly given by them as well. Since they sought a "new covenant," they would claim they hadn't given Ismailov his name themselves, but considering he'd come this far in Pleroma's hands, there was no way he'd carried that name from birth.

The Metropolitan Archbishop continued with an unbothered face.

"The reason we requested Sir Askanian's presence here today is also related to this, though it is a shame we cannot greet him in person. If the Empire is willing to accept our goodwill, we wish for Sir Askanian to take charge of the prophet Ismailov."

"I'd like to know the reason."

"He will be the only one in the Empire capable of facing the prophet Ismailov."

"I asked what that reason is."

"Do you mean to say that the likes of you could dare to face the prophet?"

At the rhetoric characteristic of madmen, the Chancellor turned his head with a stiffly hardened face. Their wicked intent to drive a wedge between the government and Askanian, who had saved millions of subjects, had already been read by us. It stung to admit, but Askanian already stood on a plane different from ordinary men like Mecklenburg himself. Could anyone claim otherwise of a person capable of saving the lives of millions? Without Askanian, millions on this soil would already have been buried beneath it, and Mecklenburg himself would by now be lying in the family cemetery in Strelitz. The ministers and Chancellor in this room, all of them, would have been reduced to dust and vanished at Pentalon. At first he couldn't accept it, but not anymore. Everyone knew the Empire already owed a debt to the second Askanian son. And that the student was Nicolaus—a mage who had been swiftly executing the Pleroma from the moment they began to run rampant—at least Mecklenburg himself knew, and in time everyone would come to know. Did they think this shallow trick of claiming a man so utterly blameless and near to justice was the same as them would work?

'And.'

Mecklenburg looked at the old mage standing before him with worried eyes. His Excellency the Chancellor was unable to reach a decision. Before an opportunity to obtain the prophet—the very heart of Pleroma—it was difficult to see at once what the correct answer was. Even if Pleroma's claims were false, having an ability-holder was good for our side, and even if we didn't utilize Mikhail Ismailov and simply shut him away in some suitable manor, there was nothing bad about having him—since it would shave down Pleroma's fighting strength.

But the problem was that this offer could be a trap. It wasn't as though anyone could guarantee what abilities the "messenger of the covenant" actually possessed, or whether he would drive us to ruin. To our politicians, who fundamentally trusted no one, this offer looked like the beckoning of Satan. And yet the reason they couldn't simply kick this opportunity away was that if a person with such abilities remained on Pleroma's side, it would unquestionably pose a problem for the safety of the subjects and the Empire.

'...For now, the best course would be to accept, and bind him with every manner of magic.'

Physical restrictions would also have to be imposed so that intelligence couldn't pass through him. How that could be done against someone who could move anywhere at will, whether restraint devices would even function—these were matters to consider, but for now, treatment as a hostage, precisely that, was appropriate. Wouldn't Askanian have judged the same? Mecklenburg swallowed his breath and listened to the Chancellor's words.

"Why hand over such an important figure to us as a hostage?"

"We and the Empire are one body. Is this not how diplomacy is done?"

Mecklenburg looked at the Metropolitan Archbishop and shook his head. This is not how diplomacy is done. One measures the opponent's national power and builds strategy with the intent of extracting as much as possible of what the opponent holds—handing everything over like this is no way to proceed. Giving it away because we're the same people? Talk sense. There must clearly be a reason these people wished to hand their prophet over to us. Even if it meant being called paranoid, that was what we had to believe.

"However, as we too cannot surrender the prophet to the Empire forever, on the day the prophet comes of age, we will take him back."

"......"

"On that day, the Empire is welcome to erase every memory our prophet accumulated during his time in the Empire. We have no intention of spoiling even this final means of proving our sincerity. Furthermore, we can covenant that we have made no attempt whatsoever to extract the Empire's secrets by placing any magic upon our prophet."

"Covenant magic is not something to be invoked carelessly."

"We know all of that. It would be regrettable if our Pleroma leadership appeared to be attempting to extract the Empire's information through tricks so light that anyone could see through them. As you know, all of you already harbor the same suspicion about our proposal, do you not?"

If everyone harbors the same suspicion, then the suspected party cannot honestly move according to that suspicion either. True enough. His Excellency the Chancellor watched the Metropolitan Archbishop for a long while, then cast Sound Insulation Magic and turned to the Farnese mage.

"Your Excellency Farnese, we need your Divine Power now."

"Is it appropriate for me to step forward?"

"Before formally requesting assistance from the Holy See, we would like to conduct a simple interrogation as to whether their words are true and whether he is safe."

Farnese smiled and shook his head.

"My apologies, but my abilities cannot interfere with Ismailov's mind."

At those words, the eyes of Ismailov, who had been staring only straight ahead, turned to Farnese. For a moment, Mecklenburg doubted his own memory. Hadn't the Sound Insulation Magic been cast?

Everyone fixed their attention on the first reaction shown by the Pleroma called the messenger of the covenant. Farnese looked into Ismailov's eyes, smiled, and continued.

"I know it is presumptuous of me, as I am not an Imperial citizen, but allow me one word. None of the Empire's Divine Power mages will be able to read Ismailov's mind. Please reconsider accepting him."

***

"So that's what happened."

At my words, Mecklenburg nodded. He exhaled at length and lowered his voice.

"So, Sir Askanian, you will need to be more careful than anyone. Pleroma believes in the scandal that arose around you in your childhood more firmly than in anything else."

I was now at a hospital in Bavaria, and the negotiations had ended in their entirety thirty minutes ago. Strangely, after restoring my hearing, Leo had dragged Narce off and disappeared, and my other friends hadn't been able to come here yet. Mecklenburg alone had come to see me, seated beside me, recounting how things had unfolded after I collapsed.

"Understood. Seeing you worry needlessly over me, Senior—it's quite the novelty."

"Needlessly?!"

I ignored Mecklenburg's protest and waved my hand.

"So, what came next? The negotiations couldn't have ended with just that."

Besides, if the Sound Insulation Magic had been cast, how had Mikhail Ismailov turned his head toward Narce? At my question, Mecklenburg's expression darkened again as he spoke.

"I've told you up to the part where Sir Farnese advised His Excellency the Chancellor not to accept."

"Yes."

"Mikhail Ismailov raised an objection to Sir Farnese. 'You can read me, can you not?' That's what he said."

"......"

You can read me, can you not.... I rolled my eyes and nodded slowly.

"And what did Narce say?"