Chapter 417

“That…”

I blinked and looked away under Wettin’s relentless stare.

“I have to admit, that is pretty surprising.”

“Hahaha!”

“So… you’ve been watching since the Pentathlon? You noticed me back then, and then again at the headquarters…?”

“That’s right. Though, to be fair, today was only the third time I’ve actually seen you use magic. The Pentathlon, Corbiniano, and today.”

“I see.”

Most people were probably the same. Aside from casting spells, today was practically only the second time I’d fought mainly with a sword. During Corbiniano, nobody had the spare attention to study someone else’s performance. In that sense, today was the first match worth remembering.

I gave Wettin a puzzled look. He turned an empty potion bottle upside down and shook out the last drops before continuing.

“But even before that, it was entertaining watching you wipe the floor with my teammates in those strategy games. And during the firearms incident, you just had to step in and make things bigger, didn’t you? Albert Mecklenburg gives an order and you treat it like background noise, then ignore it completely…”

“That was—”

To people with the values of this era, maybe it looked like a rookie showing off. To someone from the 21st century, it had been the obvious thing to do. I couldn’t accept the idea that the state had the right to decide which citizens deserved to live and which didn’t during a disaster. There was no way I could obey an order that amounted to shoot them all for efficiency’s sake.

Just as I was about to respond, Wettin leaned back in his chair and laughed.

“More importantly, Albert—that thickheaded idiot—hates your guts. That’s what really got me interested.”

“…….”

I gave up on having any expectations and simply smiled.

Calling Mecklenburg a thickhead was ridiculous. Whatever else could be said about him, he had graduated second in his year from the Empire’s finest academy. If he was a thickhead, what did that make the other ninety-nine percent of students? At this point, the best thing to do was not think too deeply about anything Wettin said.

In any case, the way he spoke without filtering a single thought made it clear we weren’t especially compatible. Still, that bluntness—or honesty, if one wanted to be generous—had its uses. Looking straight at me, he continued, “Your personality isn’t unrelated to your fighting style. And I confirmed that again today.”

Wettin twisted up one corner of his mouth as he looked at me. I met his gaze.

“I like that you’re the type to bite down and hang on until you win. So? How about training with me?”

In other words, he liked me because I reminded him of himself.

Mecklenburg had brought a good connection my way. Part of the reason Nepomucena Wettin had become this proactive was that Mecklenburg had made it painfully obvious how much he disliked me.

“Senior.”

I had entered an empty conference room to meet Mecklenburg. The A-Class matches were still underway, but both our matches were already over, so there was no problem.

Mecklenburg looked a little tired. When he saw me, he blinked in greeting. Fighting another A-Class mage was evidently exhausting for anyone; like me, the capillaries in his eyes had burst, and there was a faint smell of blood around him. I suppressed the mana that threatened to surge out and asked a question I had no real interest in asking.

“Did you win?”

“As if you need to ask.”

“Hm.”

At my reaction, Mecklenburg narrowed his eyes and turned his head away. Once again, I had to be the one to speak first.

“Why did you call me here?”

“I met your brother. He called me to the control room while you were fighting.”

“…….”

Adrian Askanien? I had expected him to try to find out what was going on, but wasn’t this timing a little too obvious? As I sank into thought, Mecklenburg rubbed the back of his neck and frowned.

“No, more importantly… You said you practiced for six hours?! How on earth did you copy me? And you could’ve at least told me—!”

“I look forward to working with you from now on. I’ll be borrowing you for a while.”

“You—”

He seemed ready to snap back, but perhaps he lacked the energy. He merely let out a long sigh and nodded.

“Do you want to hear about the situation outside first, or your brother?”

“Whichever. Just tell me.”

“…Let’s go in order. The outside situation first. Adrian Askanien won’t be supervising our training and strategy for long.”

“That’s because he only took over while he was on leave, isn’t it?”

“There’s a more fundamental reason it can’t last. We’ll be deployed on a new operation soon.”

“…….”

I rubbed my chin and nodded. So that was it. Adrian Askanien’s job was probably to set things up before that operation began.

“‘Pleroma will break off negotiations soon.’ That’s the government’s claim. This conclusion was also reached based on information Adrian Askanien brought back. In other words, Adrian Askanien came to Germany for two reasons from the very beginning: to check on your injuries and to handle state affairs in Germany for a while.”

“So Germany doesn’t run without my brother, apparently.”

It was a light remark, but Mecklenburg shot me an irritated look. That grudge of his is something else. I threw out another question just to make sure.

“But you said my brother didn’t know about Ismailov’s existence.”

“At least, the government didn’t tell him. Regardless of the importance of the mission, they made sure only the smallest number of people possible knew about it. But in this case, wouldn’t that mean Pleroma had been reaching overseas as well, preparing for their next operation?”

I nodded. At least I understood that much.

“What exactly was the information?”

“I don’t know that myself.”

Well, of course. As if he’d tell you that much.

If I had to make an educated guess, the most likely possibility was that Pleroma would make some kind of ‘decision’ in response to the movements of the cult hiding behind the French Imperial Family as a shield. Their operation had already begun the moment they released Ismailov outside. Now, what Pleroma did next would determine the fate of the operation involving Ismailov. All those possibilities Elias had reasoned through would finally be confirmed here.

Mecklenburg changed the subject.

“Let’s talk about your brother. To put it bluntly, I don’t know whether he fell for your little deception or not. Most of the A-Classes were fooled into thinking you learned it from me, though.”

“…….”

“Adrian did ask me whether I had ever taught you, but that alone isn’t conclusive proof that he fell for this little act. Understand?”

“I know.”

“And…”

For some reason, Mecklenburg snapped the words out almost irritably as soon as I finished speaking. Then he squeezed his eyes shut, groaned under his breath, and let out a deep sigh.

“…He asked me…”

“What.”

“He asked me to become an adult you could trust and rely on.”

“…….”

“What’s with that face?”

“Ah… Sorry. I couldn’t help it. That surely can’t be all he said. Please tell me the rest in detail.”

“That’s all. As you know, Adrian can’t stay here for long. He asked me to help make sure that even after he leaves Germany, you won’t be brought down by public criticism or schemes against you.”

“…….”

I kept the same expression as before and lowered my eyes.

‘I had expected him to try to find out what was going on, but wasn’t this timing a little too obvious?’ What exactly is the premise behind calling it obvious?

My brother is trying to bury me and kill me.

That is the premise. Calling Mecklenburg out in the middle of my match was a rather hasty decision, one that seemed to openly reveal that premise. But what if the premise itself was wrong?

Calling Mecklenburg out immediately after confirming my combat style—in other words, during my match—would be rash for an elder brother caught in the middle of a succession struggle. But for an elder brother whose younger sibling had spent his entire life sick and confined to his home, only to just begin walking the path of a battle mage? It was hardly unnatural. If anything, it was perfectly natural.

There were two possibilities.

First, this could be a calculated move designed to look uncalculated—a performance in which he played the role of the most benevolent elder brother of all.

And second….

“You’ve been carrying around rumors that you can absorb other people’s mana by drinking their blood, haven’t you? From what I’ve seen of you now, I think that’s complete nonsense, but there were rumors that when you were young, you instinctively sucked up mana and killed animals and servants, or something like that….”

Mecklenburg’s words faded into the background. I twisted the muscles around my mouth, which refused to move, and forced the corners of my lips upward.

Second.

Second….

The ticking of the clock hanging in the church. The ringing of the chalice that had fallen on Ash Wednesday. The blood staining Mecklenburg’s clothes, the blood that had spilled across his stomach in a time that had now disappeared, the blood that had filled my hands—all of it overlapped with the present. The movement of the core I was currently suppressing became tangled in my thoughts before disappearing.

“…I don’t think any of that is true. But regardless, the fact that you’ve only recently become, in the eyes of the public, a true subject of the Empire rather than someone associated with Pleroma—that is the first real happiness you’ve ever had, isn’t it? Adrian seemed to want to make sure that happiness wasn’t shattered. But that’s only how it seemed. As you know, Adrian Askanien is someone who thoroughly calculates everything. Every word, every glance, every action. He plans them all with absolute precision. So….”

Mecklenburg hesitated to continue, swallowing hard. Instead of meeting my eyes, his irises wandered aimlessly over the desk and the floor beyond it.

I knew. He couldn’t be certain. He might have known Adrian Askanien for longer than I had—even longer than Luka had—but he was still only Adrian’s friend, not family bound to him by blood.

I needed to revise my strategy. Right now, he had no idea which of Adrian and me was telling the truth. And neither did I. I could confidently vouch for the innocence of who I was now, a patched-up little boat that had already been repaired several times over. But there was no way for me to explain the person I had once been, a being made from planks that had long since been swept away by the waves. At this point, I almost wanted to know the truth myself. That left me with three choices. The first was to adopt the same strategy as Adrian Askanien. The second was to stick to my original strategy. And the last was—

I looked at Mecklenburg, whose eyes were fixed somewhere in empty space.

“You must have a lot on your mind right now.”

“Hm…?”

“I understand. The others will probably react the same way you did. Just do whatever you feel is right. And thank you for coming to tell me.”

“Wait, what are you thinking—hold on!”

I left the flustered Mecklenburg behind and warped away, kicking off the ground. A warp point leading into the waiting room appeared before my eyes.

Defying all expectations, Adrian Askanien didn’t show so much as the tip of his nose for the entire day after his first greeting at dawn. Just as Mecklenburg had said. After returning to Germany, he was busy moving between government departments to formulate a strategy against Pleroma, occasionally shutting himself away in the control room.

Truly, ‘defying all expectations.’ If this was how things were going to be, then what exactly had he come here for? Just because he’d obtained information on Pleroma’s plans? Just to check on my injuries? That’s all?

“…….”

What if I was wrong to believe that he had some ulterior motive?

“Ah, Chairman.”

Currently, after handling a rampage report and temporarily swapping appearances with Narke to go out, I had met with the chairman of the Hermetische Gesellschaft as Nikolaus. Complicated as it was, it couldn’t be helped. With Pleroma planning to make its next move soon, I couldn’t afford to simply sit around and wait. And now, we’d just finished our conversation and were about to go our separate ways.

The chairman turned at my call, raising an eyebrow. I handed him a blue sheet of paper. It was a note folded into a small slip.

“This just fell out of your secretary’s file.”

“Hmm?”

The chairman gestured for his secretary to check it. The secretary took the paper with a puzzled look, unfolded it, and tilted his head.

“…What is this…? I didn’t write this.”

“Is that so? But it just fell out of your file.”

“What is it?”

The chairman took the paper from his secretary. His expression suddenly turned serious, and he spoke in a tense voice.

“Your Excellency. This…”

“What is it?”

“It must have been sent by the person who left the rosary in our storage room. Look.”

He held out the paper with a grave expression. On the stiff blue paper was a large circle drawn in black ink, with a black dot in the very center. There was nothing else particularly noteworthy about it.

“The person who drew this certainly wasn’t very skilled, but this is unmistakably an alchemical symbol.”

“Alchemical symbol?”

“Yes. Two circles drawn like this are a symbol for gold in alchemy.”

“Gold… But why would they send you a message about gold?”

“There must be a hidden meaning. We occult enthusiasts don’t make our codes simple. The basic principle of a code is to leave information that looks completely meaningless at a glance. I wonder if something is going to happen involving gold. As it happens, part of a pharaoh’s necklace recently went up for auction…”

The chairman continued excitedly, having discovered an occult element in the message. I turned the note over a couple more times before giving it a little shake.

“May I take this?”

“Go ahead. It doesn’t seem to contain anything special beyond the gold symbol.”

I took the note and reverted to Narke’s appearance before heading back to Brandenburg, where the headquarters was located.

We had arranged to meet briefly in a conference room during the training period after dinner. I couldn’t go home, so if we wanted to talk, staying in this building was our best option.

I stopped by the quarters for a moment before warping to the conference room. About thirty minutes later, all my friends had gathered. I exchanged a silent nod with Leo and Zähringen, who were already seated, then looked toward the door.

“Luka!”

At some point, Elias must have warped in behind me without my noticing, because his hand suddenly slapped my shoulder. He pulled out the chair beside me and sat down.

“When did you get here?! Seriously, Luka, you’re ridiculously fast.”

“You’re just late.”

“I’m not! Not this time. I got here right on time.”

I glanced at the clock, then gave a small laugh and nodded. Before getting into the real matter at hand, I casually asked, “So, how did your match go earlier? Did you win?”

“Oh, that. You could say I won mentally.”

“…….”

So he lost. There probably weren’t many people who could match him in terms of mana, but when it was a fight where the outcome could be decided in a tenth of a second, his lack of technical skill—or his tendency to charge around recklessly—must have been what cost him the match. I wanted to tell him to work on his Skill stat.

Elias, apparently feeling no shame whatsoever, gave a few short whistles and draped an arm over his chair before asking, “So, why’d you call us here?”

“Why else?”

I smiled and looked at Ulrike, who was sitting across from me. For some reason, his expression was stiff.

“Luise. I wanted to ask you about that wooden cross you said you lost back then.”

“Oh, yeah! That.”

Ulrike fidgeted with both arms, waving them awkwardly before running his tongue over his lips.

“…But, guys. There’s something I want to tell you first. There’s something I need to show you.”

“What is it?”

Ulrike pulled something out of his pocket. It was a blue note. Everyone’s expressions hardened. Ulrike spoke in a subdued voice.

“I found this after dinner. It was draped over Heike’s cabinet handle. Something about it felt off.”

“Heike’s cabinet?”

Leo raised one eyebrow in question, and Ulrike nodded. I took the note from him and unfolded it.

[48° 8′ 0″ S, 169° 34′ 0″ W]

“…….”

“…If Heike were here, he would’ve figured out who sent this right away. But since he isn’t… I thought I should tell you guys.”

Coordinates.

Just as I knew the approximate coordinates of Seoul simply from having received a basic education in Korea, people here would have heard the coordinates of their own capital at least once. North latitude 52°, East longitude 13°. But these numbers didn’t match at all…

And the S and W after the numbers meant south latitude and west longitude.

“Mm, Lukas.”

At Narke’s call, I quietly met his gaze. Narke gave me a faint, knowing smile and nodded, so I turned my attention back to my friends. Ulrike then spoke with a tense expression.

“I thought, maybe going here would lead to something helpful, or maybe it’s some kind of warning telling us to stay away from that place… But looking at it now, those aren’t coordinates in the Northern Hemisphere. Why would this show up in front of me?”

“…Hmm. Southern Hemisphere, huh. Anyone got a globe~?”

Elias was silent for a moment before asking. Zähringen, without a word, warped away somewhere and returned with a map.

“West longitude 169°.”

He muttered to himself as he pointed to the location on the map. There was nothing but Alaska and Antarctica anywhere near that longitude, and even then, there was nothing along the 48th parallel south. Elias narrowed his eyes and grumbled.

“It’s the ocean. The South Pacific? Is it telling us to go there and drown ourselves?”

“No land…?”

Ulrike asked cautiously. Elias nodded.

“It’s just ocean. There’s a tiny British island to the northeast, but… obviously, its coordinates are different.”

Leo, who had been sitting quietly and watching us, tilted his head.

“48 degrees, huh.”

I looked at him and asked briefly, “What about it?”

“It’s not 48 degrees south, but Munich is at 48 degrees north.”

“Ah~! Right! No wonder the number at the front looked familiar.”

Elias clapped his hands as though he had only just realized it. Leo gave him a hollow smile and shrugged. Judging by Elias’s reaction, Leo must have decided that he was absolutely hopeless as a ruler. Yet, considering that Leo would eventually be the one to put him on the imperial throne with his own hands, it was hard not to find the whole thing amusing from an outsider’s perspective. But that was beside the point for now….

Keeping my eyes on the map, I said, “That’s right. Munich is at 48 degrees north.”

“…….”

The moment I said it, the room fell silent, as if everyone had been waiting for me to say those exact words. I had hoped for an opportunity to bring it up, but actually getting this reaction caught me slightly off guard. Trying not to let it show, I stood up and searched for a blank sheet of paper as I spoke.

“I heard something earlier. ‘The basic principle of a code is to leave information that looks completely meaningless at a glance.’ What do you think?”

No one said a word. They probably wanted to hear my answer first. I continued, “By coincidence, the absolute value of the latitude falls within the range of latitudes of our country. What a coincidence.”

“Hmm?”

Elias made a questioning noise, urging me to explain further. I unfolded the paper and began scribbling down the numbers.

“Let’s say the coordinates of a point on the Earth’s surface are (φ, θ). Then what would the coordinates of the point directly opposite it be? You can figure it out just by common sense. Anyone want to give it a try?”

“No idea. Too much trouble. If you know it, Luka, you write it down.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d find it troublesome, so I wrote it down already. It’s (−φ, θ ± 180°).”

“…….”

Silence fell. The corners of Elias’s mouth slowly curled upward. Zähringen also rested his chin on his hand, going “Hmm,” as he tilted his head. I looked around at my friends and muttered, “Coincidentally, the absolute value of the latitude is identical. Right?”

“…Ah~ This isn’t a coincidence, is it? The antipodal point of the coordinates written there is Munich.”

Elias’s expression hardened as he looked up at me.

“Right, Luka?”

That’s right.

48° N, 11° E. Munich. I nodded, and Leo, who had been quietly watching us, furrowed his brow.

“I really hoped not, but if it has to be Germany, it’s certain this note was meant for us.”

“Yeah. And before I came here, I found another note that looked like this.”

“What?”

I drew a circle in the margin of the paper and showed it to them.

“This.”

“What’s that?”

“It was an alchemical symbol. Apparently, it means gold. When I first saw it, I thought it was probably nothing, but…”

“Now’s not the time to just brush it off, is it? Alchemists love this kind of thing.”

Elias spoke with a crooked expression.

Right. He must be talking about symbols that lead from one to another, each pointing toward the next. It wasn’t just alchemy, either. Anything with even the slightest connection to the occult tended to work that way.

I gathered the note and the paper and placed them together before asking, “Exactly. In alchemy, gold represents the sun. And where does the sun lead us? We’ve already been given a location, so it’d be nice if we were given some other piece of information.”

No one spoke. I looked at Ulrike, who was only blinking, then Zähringen, whose mouth was twisted into a strange expression, then Elias, who wore much the same look, and finally Leo, who had a hand pressed to his forehead.

Good. They had all figured out the answer, at least roughly.

I smiled and opened my mouth.

“This anonymous sender is telling us to meet in Munich. On Sunday.”