Chapter 427

It looked like Austria-Hungary was about to become a puppet state of a cult.

I slowly lifted my gaze from the ground beneath my feet and looked at the enormous neo-Renaissance police headquarters standing just as grandly as anything in the German Empire. As the sun began to set, the light from the mana lamps lining the streets filled the city, making it look no different from the Europe I had seen in the 21st century. There were no skyscrapers to rival those of America, but the architecture blended so well with the aesthetics of a city steeped in history that it gave the whole place an even greater sense of grandeur. Beyond its aesthetic value, it was more than enough to symbolize the prosperity and history that the great power of Austria-Hungary had accumulated over the years.

Good.

From this point on, if we didn’t start thinking as quickly as possible, the Austria-Hungary we were looking at would end up following the same path as the Third French Empire.

What path had the Third French Empire been taking? The Third French Empire of the Orléans Imperial Family, ruled by a cult, should hardly be called “France” anymore. In practice, it ought to be called by the name of the cult that controlled it.

The same was happening here. We were standing on the verge of the birth of the Pleroma Empire.

― “…All right.”

Feeling a headache coming on, I quietly spoke to Narke.

― “Seeing people’s faces up close really makes it easier to feel it, doesn’t it?”

― “Yeah. And you had already suspected it yourself.”

Narke turned to me and continued.

― “Ever since we heard that the Prime Minister had died.”

There was no way it could have been otherwise. The fact that the continent was on the verge of falling into massive chaos wasn’t anything I had only just realized.

But the realization that the scale of that chaos would far exceed our previous estimates, and might even approach an unprecedented level, had remained only a possibility until now. For the first time, it had become almost a certainty. That made my palms sweat.

My eyes met those of one of the police officers. I naturally walked around the park with Narke, making a full circle. Narke changed his appearance into “Johanna” even to my eyes. I knew what that meant: we had to stay completely in character. If I kept looking at Narke’s real appearance, my eyes and even my hands would inevitably move according to what he actually looked like.

Narke slowly walked toward the other side of the police headquarters and sent his voice into my mind through divine power.

― “…I only held back because we couldn’t jump to the conclusion that the Prime Minister had definitely died because of Atropos. No matter how much information we received through reports about the mood in the region, those were still just written accounts listing facts. They weren’t enough to truly blend into the country. It would probably be safer to become more familiar with the local community, though….”

― “This is enough material for us to keep up the act.”

We had already confirmed a great deal on the way here by train. Narke answered calmly.

― “Yeah. I’ll be counting on you.”

I looked into ‘Johanna’s’ eyes. He adjusted his grip on the parasol with his white-gloved hand.

― “Because from here on, we have to fool mages.”

Until now, we had only been deceiving Old Humans. Now we had to blend in among mages who had cores like ours and could therefore detect even the faint traces of mana drifting through the air. Mages who were at least above average in ability, and perhaps skilled enough to be called the best in the Empire.

― “We should find out what kind of magical medicine was used.”

This time, too, we entered a restaurant despite not being hungry. We had chosen a place where people in uniform-like clothes were present, regardless of which institution they belonged to. It was around dinnertime, so some people were bound to be eating, and sure enough, there were people having dinner with their colleagues.

I went over the clothes of the people I had seen sitting at a table when we came in. One of them was wearing an ordinary brown suit instead of a uniform, with a pair of magnifying spectacles—about half the size of normal glasses—hanging from his breast pocket. As a New Human, he looked young, and unless he strained his eyes excessively, he shouldn’t have developed presbyopia or astigmatism in the first place. Seeing him carry something like that around felt a little out of place. When I passed by him, I caught a faint, artificial, unpleasant smell, but the person sitting across from him didn’t seem particularly bothered by it. The person opposite him was wearing a Police Department uniform, and judging from his epaulets, he didn’t hold a particularly high position.

Assuming they were both handling cases related to the Prime Minister’s sudden death, I could make a reasonable guess about their professions. The one in the Police Department uniform was clearly a mage from that organization, while the person sitting across from him was probably one of the forensic pathologists.

They were sitting diagonally behind us, and Narke, seated across from me, had a clear view of both their profiles. We had deliberately chosen this spot for that reason. The problem was that they were both mages, so they had carefully put up soundproofing magic. No one sitting here could hear their conversation. But…

— “You still haven’t figured out what kind of potion was used?”

— “It took longer than identifying the Old Human poison, so by the time we could examine it, the whole body had already decomposed.”

Narke kept glancing at their eyes as he relayed their conversation to me through divine power. Just as Adrian Askanien’s aide had said, with Narke around, almost anything seemed possible. His Insight was remarkably useful when it came to solving cases. I couldn’t be two hundred percent certain about the intuitive side of his abilities, the things he couldn’t explain through logic, but if his abilities could help prevent Austria-Hungary from becoming the ‘Pleroma Empire,’ there was no reason not to trust him. Just as I had all this time.

I clinked my utensils against the bowl and somehow forced down the potato soup that refused to go down my throat.

— “So it really was true. What about the tissue samples you removed?”

— “That decomposed too. All of it.”

— “I can smell formalin all over you even now. And it still decomposed after you put it in that? Is there a potion that can do that?”

— “How would I know? Could be some new drug made in an illegal laboratory. In an age when poison is easier to get than a meal, you think someone couldn’t make a new potion?”

— “When you say poison is easy to get, you mean things like herbs used by commoners and the like. Magic potions aren’t something just anyone can get. Either way, this was done by another mage. It has to be.”

— “Of course it was. A Hungarian?”

— “Probably. Or the opposition party.”

— “Aren’t those basically the same thing? I’ve been saying for a long time that we ought to separate Hungary from the coordinate system…”

After that, Narke fell silent for a while. It was only about two minutes later that he began relaying their conversation about the case again.

— “Actually, the newspapers said it wasn’t an Old Human poison… but that was determined while the Prime Minister’s body was still intact, so even that isn’t certain.”

— “Good grief…”

— “Still, the Police Department is investigating the mansion in Niederösterreich and the Prime Minister’s residence here, aren’t they? If he was poisoned, one of the servants would have shown some kind of unusual reaction. So don’t worry.”

— “I’m not worried. As long as I get my paycheck, that’s all that matters to me. Looks like I’ll have to go stand guard at the door again.”

— “Yeah. What time do you start?”

They finished their pointless conversation and soon got up from their seats.

I had hoped to meet some of the Police Department’s higher-ups, but instead we had encountered one who wasn’t directly involved in the investigation and a forensic pathologist who seemed to be involved but wasn’t actually going into the crime scene.

Perhaps we would have had better luck if we had found another upscale restaurant. Still, this was the restaurant Narke had chosen based on his Insight, so for now, it was probably the best choice we could have made.

‘First of all, just as Narke said, the body had decomposed to the point that they couldn’t determine what potion had been used… But they were still considering poisoning.’

They would be gathering not only the servants but everyone around the Prime Minister and interrogating them with divine power. If they found no one who had poisoned the Prime Minister, the government would gradually rule out the possibility of poisoning.

However, this might be where they finally caught the person who had used Atropos. Austria-Hungary had already learned the method I used when interrogating the members of the French Third Empire’s imperial family. So even if the Prime Minister’s killer had been subjected to the same memory-erasure spell that had been used on Charles d’Orléans, they would be able to determine that it had been used on them as well. At least, assuming their technology hadn’t advanced since then.

I quietly stared at the food I had managed to finish about half of before leaving the restaurant with Narke. As I thought about our next destination, Narke said exactly what I had been thinking.

― “We need to go to the Ministry of Magic.”

They would have brought the suspects into the interrogation rooms at the Ministry of Magic and be opening up their minds with divine power mages. Now the key was, just as Narke had said earlier, to ‘blend in among the mages.’ Concealment magic was almost certainly out of the question. I asked him through divine power.

― “Right. What are we going to disguise ourselves as?”

“…….”

I swallowed as I looked at the old man standing beside me, more than a handspan shorter than I was. His hair was so white that it was practically gray, and he was balding like an Old Human grandfather, with a slightly stooped back. Dressed in priestly robes, he stood in front of the Ministry of Magic with both hands resting on a staff with an enormous head.

I was an old man now, too. The difference was that I looked like an Old Human in his seventies and was still relatively spry, while Narke beside me looked to be nearly ninety.

I looked down at the back of my hand, its skin loose and wrinkled, veins standing out beneath it. Then I looked at Narke’s hand, covered in countless fine wrinkles that made mine look almost smooth by comparison.

‘…This is insane…’

The edges of his irises had become so blurred that it was difficult to tell where they ended. Even knowing that this appearance was an illusion, I couldn’t help feeling uneasy. Seeing this, I almost thought playing Johanna was the better choice…

I had no idea when the killer holding Atropos might approach another politician or member of the imperial family and begin a series of murders. Yet even with a ticking time bomb in front of us, without even knowing how much time was left on the clock, I was thoroughly flustered right now. Despair and bewilderment were running parallel in my mind.

When two Old Humans dressed in priestly robes suddenly stopped in front of the Ministry of Magic building, two New Human police officers guarding the entrance approached us with puzzled expressions.

“May I ask what brings you here? State your identity.”

“I’m sorry to trouble you in the middle of all this confusion. My teacher insisted that he had to come and offer a blessing…”

I put on an awkward expression and glanced at my ‘Old Human teacher’ as I whispered the words, hoping the mana-control artifacts I had strapped to my arms and legs were working properly. I pretended to speak standard German, mixing in just a slight Italian accent. Narke would laugh if he heard me, but there was nothing I could do about it.

“This is Father Benedetto Rossi, and I am his assistant priest, Arsenio Moretti.”

“Are you from Italy?”

“Yes. We came from Lombardy. Actually, we entered the Empire a few days ago because my teacher wanted to visit the place he had called home as a child one more time.”

I held out the passport we had prepared beforehand. We had only made one passport for this identity—just in case, since we were visiting a Catholic country, I had even taken the photograph wearing priestly robes, but there wasn’t a photograph of me looking this old!—so we had to bluff our way through here. Fortunately, they weren’t particularly interested in me.

For one thing, people seemed to be more lenient toward clergy. Religion still held far more influence here than it did in 21st century Korea, so that was probably part of it. If I had approached them in an ordinary suit, the police would probably have just waved us away without even bothering to speak to us.

Secondly, we were pretending to be Old Humans, and to New Humans, Old Humans weren’t exactly considered worth worrying about in any sense. Young Old Humans, however—from their twenties to their sixties—were viewed rather unfavorably because they accounted for most of the crime rate. It was a little unfair, but they were practically regarded as threats to public security. The elderly, on the other hand, tended to be viewed differently.

And the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia was territory the Austrian Empire had lost long ago. There was nothing strange about someone being of Italian descent and still considering himself Austrian. Apparently, these Austrian New Humans were all steeped in militaristic nationalism and chauvinism, because the two officers briefly looked over my passport before turning their attention to Narke with expressions of pleasant surprise.

In other words, what they heard was that a subject of a former territory still missed the country that had once ruled it and considered it his homeland. At a time when ‘Hungarians belonging to their own country’ were supposedly ungrateful for everything Austria had done to develop their nation and were now on the verge of destroying Austrian security, apparently those words gave the two officers a certain sense of national pride.

I felt sick as I watched the muscles in the two New Humans’ faces move. They bent slightly at the waist to bring themselves down to eye level and spoke kindly to the ninety-year-old Old Human beside me.

“Father, what brings you here?”

“Hmm?”

“Father, what brings you here? Outsiders aren’t allowed inside at the moment.”

Since Narke continued pretending that he couldn’t hear, I lowered my head and spoke loudly into his ear.

“Teacher, they’re asking what brings you here.”

“What brings me here?! I have come to offer my blessing!”

At that, the officer looked somewhat troubled, but his face was still filled with the same peaceful expression as before.

“Ah, Father. We are truly grateful. But your prayers alone would be—”

“Let me pray for the peace of my homeland! I have a student in the Austrian government whom I taught long ago.”

The officers looked puzzled at the mention of a student, but I immediately picked up on Narke’s words and spoke earnestly.

“My teacher used to be a professor at a seminary when he was young. Could you let us in just this once? He is very stubborn. I have tried to talk him out of this dozens of times, but he simply won’t listen.”

“But—”

“As you know, Old Humans tend to suffer quite a lot from… well, as they grow older.”

Before the officer could finish, I carefully pointed toward my head and furrowed my brow. The New Humans wouldn’t be able to sympathize with my somber expression, but they still tried to imitate it. They had at least learned about the illnesses that came with old age in Old Humans, if only from books.

“My teacher doesn’t have much time left before retirement. Aren’t all the people inside divine power mages? We won’t cause any trouble. Just give us one minute to find his former student.”

“We can’t let you inside.”

The officer spoke firmly despite looking apologetic. I cursed inwardly. Getting inside would have been the best option, but apparently no matter how carefully we played our parts, they weren’t going to let us through that easily. But then the officer continued with something more encouraging.

“Instead, if you give me their name, I can call them out here. I will have some free time after my shift, so I will give you exactly three minutes.”

“That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

“Not at all. In fact, we Austrians are deeply impressed by your kindness and generosity, Father. So, whom are you looking for?”

“Is there anyone here named Otto? My teacher has been asking for him.”

“Hmm…”

The officer looked slightly flustered before nodding.

“Please wait a moment.”

“Yes.”

The Otto I was talking about was Otto Wieser. He was one of the most powerful divine power mages in the House Österreich-Este’s possession, and a Catholic. His name had been listed in the information provided by the German government. I had probably caught them off guard by naming one of the busiest people in the country. I waited for Otto Wieser to come out, careful not to let any nonverbal reaction show on my face.

There was no need to be nervous. No matter how exceptional a divine power mage he was, he was not all that different from the other divine power mages I had seen in Prussia. It was an obvious fact, yet it kept falling apart the moment I remembered that we were on foreign soil, standing on the brink of a Pleroma Empire. My mouth kept going dry.

He might notice our mana. That would have been a problem even if he were just an ordinary divine power mage from Prussia. So now was the time to trust Narke. I took a step back, suppressing my core as much as I could while making sure the illusion magic did not break. At the same time, I had to keep a calm expression and smile.

Before long, a well-built divine power mage came outside with a puzzled look on his face. White divine power seemed to drift around him, as though he had been using it just moments ago.

“You were looking for me?”

“…….”

I opened the status window, but he had no ability like Insight. The only thing listed under his Traits was divine power. Only then did Narke, who had been leaning heavily on his cane, speak.

“Do you know me?”

“I am afraid I don’t, Father. Where would I have met you?”

“Didn’t we meet at the Theology Department of the University of Vienna? Thirty years ago. Hmm?”

I looked at Otto Wieser’s face. It seemed that he really had graduated from the Theology Department of the University of Vienna. He stood there awkwardly, tilting his head before the small, loud-voiced Old Human.

“I am sorry, Father, but are you perhaps looking for a different Otto? I don’t remember my professors from back then very well…”

Before he could finish, the elderly Old Human beside me raised his trembling hand and made a large sign of the cross. Otto Wieser stopped talking.

“The LORD will keep you from all harm– he will watch over your life.”

The Old Human spoke in a clear, steady voice, with a firm expression that made him seem more devout than anyone else—as though he had devoted himself to God for nearly a century. I couldn’t help but be taken aback by the natural holiness that seemed to radiate from him. Narke suited the appearance of a man in his nineties far better than that of a teenager. It wasn’t a matter of appearance. It was something more fundamental.

A chill ran down the back of my neck, and my eyes instinctively fixed on Otto Wieser’s face. Nothing came from the Old Human’s rough fingertips. There was only an indescribable presence that marked him as a religious man, yet I could almost have sworn that divine power was lingering in the air around him.

Otto Wieser seemed to sense it as well. He would probably mistake the divinity Narke had cultivated through the Roman Catholic Church for nothing more than the dignity of a ninety-year-old Old Human who had spent his entire life in the faith.

“Otto. I pray for Austria’s peace. You have to win.”

“…….”

Otto Wieser blinked, exchanging bewildered and troubled looks with the police officers. Then, with an apologetic expression—as though he truly couldn’t remember—he began to say something to Narke.

Narke didn’t give him the chance. He immediately turned around.

— “The first round of questioning is already over, and this is what we found. There’s no one who prepared the poison, and no one who secretly put it in the food.”

That was what Narke had learned while pretending to be the old man. It was troubling news.

It would have been better if we could get the cooperation of the Austrian government, but we weren’t in a position to do that. We hadn’t entered the country with their government’s permission in the first place—it was a decision the German Empire had made while considering both its own interests and, to some extent, the safety of the continent. We could think of it as something akin to the intelligence operations of the 20th century.

There was another problem as well. Even if the possibility was extremely low, if there was someone within the Austro-Hungarian government who had brought Atropos in from Italy, then setting aside the fact that we would have to reconsider our entire premise, telling the Austrian government about it would be a disastrous mistake.

Having seen what happened in France, our government would naturally have wanted us to proceed with caution. For now, sharing all our information openly seemed like the fastest way to resolve the matter, and I agreed to some extent. But if this possibility was taken into account, we couldn’t afford to act carelessly.

The moment we found even a single clue, Germany would immediately inform the Austrian government and make a great show of it. So we had to find something that would let us tighten the net, even by a little, and get that information back to Germany as soon as possible.

An hour had now passed since we arrived in Vienna.

‘The forensic pathologist suspects poisoning, yet there’s no one around the Prime Minister who prepared the poison or secretly administered it…’

How could this have happened? If things continued like this, the case would be closed as an unsolved mystery. And if our theory was correct, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would become the Pleroma Empire after that.

What we needed to do now was first find a way to naturally slip into the investigation at the Prime Minister’s residence. There was no avoiding it anymore. We had no choice but to pose as Austrian investigators among the mages.

Narke, once again in the form of ‘Johanna,’ whispered into my mind.

— “Look. There’s a barrier around it.”

Of course there was. That was the problem. Not that I had intended to, but this wasn’t something we could solve by simply using a mental manipulation spell or casting an illusion spell right in front of the door. I walked toward the Prime Minister’s residence in silence at Narke’s words. The Ministry of Magic and the Prime Minister’s residence were not far apart; there were only two blocks between them. Narke broke the silence and spoke through divine power.

— “Our forged IDs won’t work. What are you going to do?”

We had brought forged Austrian investigator IDs in advance, but we needed genuine identification to pass through the barrier. Or perhaps a badge would be enough. They must have been given some means of passing through it. More than that, I didn’t know whether I should find his concern over what we were going to do reassuring or frustrating.

I looked toward the residence in the distance, where police officers in navy uniforms stood in a long line, and spoke.

— “We can’t use a barrier-disabling spell, can we?”

— “Of course not, Lukas. This isn’t a Bavarian barrier to begin with.”

Yes, I knew that. More Austro-Hungarian people had gathered around the residence than I had expected. The police had repeatedly dispersed the crowds, but people kept slowly gathering again.

What on earth should we do? How were we supposed to get into the Prime Minister’s residence?

I looked up at the sky. The reddish glow of sunset had completely faded, leaving only a dark violet sky above us. I fell into thought for a moment before quietly speaking.

— “Let’s go to the hotel.”