Chapter 435

I lowered my staff as I watched the divine power erupt from the entrance. The vitriol melted away without a trace under the combined divine power of dozens of people. The Monsignor of St. Stephen’s, who had been bold enough to brainwash his own Archbishop, was seized by a real Cardinal and Monsignor of the Catholic Church. In the distance, I could see the Austrian Imperial Guards rushing over

I wiped the sweat and holy water from my forehead, rubbed my nose and mouth, and steadied my breathing. The effects of the mind control drug were still lingering. I couldn’t exactly call it a pleasant experience, but it had given me some idea of how far the enemy’s technology had advanced.

‘…They’ve improved a lot.’

Its performance was clearly different from the crude mind control drug they had developed three months ago. It was obvious that their technology had advanced by leaps and bounds after abducting the magic scholars. The Archbishop of St. Stephen’s had been controlled by his own subordinate, the Monsignor, the entire time, yet he had shown absolutely no sign of being under a mind manipulation magic.

At this point, there was one person who came to mind, wasn’t there? I pushed that tiresome figure out of my thoughts and looked at the two Vatican mages approaching me.

“I was told you were Father Armellini.”

The Vatican mage I had never seen before spoke to me politely. I had cast an extremely faint cognitive distortion spell on everyone except one court official, so this Vatican mage probably couldn’t identify me from my face alone. Even so, he had found me without difficulty. He knew that the person pretending to be a ‘fake Vatican mage’ before the altar was actually a genuine Vatican mage.

He used divine power to put his words directly into my mind.

— “I heard about the operation from the Prefect. I will do my best to make sure no information reaches the German Empire.”

“Thank you.”

The Prefect must mean Narke. And by saying he would make sure no information got out, he meant that he would prevent even the minor details revealed by ‘Lucio Armellini’ during this incident from reaching the German government.

In any case, an intelligence operation like this could never be made public. My mission had already ended at the Ministry of Commerce and National Economy, and as long as the safety of the Empire wasn’t compromised, there was no need for the government to know everything about me. It was better that they didn’t know.

I had taken precautions in various ways, such as using ordinary mana instead of divine power, but in Germany, simply learning that Lucio Armellini was Lukas Askanien would be enough for many people to connect me to Nikolaus and start asking questions. So, for now, I intended to hide myself under the Vatican. The Vatican mage looked into my eyes and spoke.

— “The German Empire may not remember, but the Papal See will. That is His Holiness’s will.”

“…….”

By mentioning the German Empire, he could have been speaking on behalf of the Papal States as a nation. But he deliberately chose not to.

The Papal States and the Papal See were different things. In the world I had lived in, the Papal States were destroyed by the Italian army when it invaded Rome during this period. Even then, however, the Papal See remained. It had never ceased to exist for even a moment since the establishment of Roman Catholicism.

In A.D. 1898, the Papal States existed only in historical records. But in the A.A. 1898 that followed Ion Forso, they had become a great power as a gathering of divine power from across the world. Whether they would still exist in A.A. 1998 was impossible to know. Even the Catholic hierarchy saw it that way. But the Papal See would always exist, so long as the breath of Catholicism remained.

So when he said, “The German Empire may not remember, but the Papal See will,” those words were anything but lighthearted to them. To me, who wanted to respect the values they believed in, they were the highest praise I could have received.

I answered with a silent smile. Then the other Vatican mage, who had remained silent until now, asked, “Are you going to meet the Prefect now?”

“I should.”

“I will escort you.”

I took the mage’s hand and straightened myself from where I had been leaning against the altar. He drew my arm closer to him and led me outside.

It felt like a dream that we had actually succeeded.

To briefly retrace how it had gone, we had infiltrated the place from different positions. Narke had gone in as a court priest, while I had disguised myself as a low-ranking servant.

Until we entered the chapel, we could never be suspected of being mages from the Papal See—if we were, the culprit would have postponed the attack. For the same reason, we couldn’t entrust this mission to the dozens of clergy who would be coming over from the Vatican.

But once we were inside the chapel, both of us had to be recognized as Vatican mages. The reason was obvious enough that I didn’t even need to think about it.

At that point, there were only two Vatican mages left in Austria: Narke Farnese and me. And that presented a problem. We couldn’t reveal that both of us belonged to the Papal See, and between the two of us, I was the bigger problem.

Narke was already a different matter simply because he belonged to House Farnese. On top of that, he was officially enrolled at a seminary directly administered by the Papal See, so there would be nothing strange about him carrying a Vatican wand.

So Narke sought out a trustworthy Vatican cardinal and bishop who was affiliated with this country and asked for their cooperation. In other words, we borrowed the wands. That was true both literally and figuratively. The strange part about saying we had “borrowed” it figuratively was that we weren’t actually using this their wands. This was all to establish an alibi. I used Narke’s wand, and because Narke adopted the persona of having lent me his wand, he fought with my wand instead of using the Papal staff. That way, even if Austria-Hungary somehow passed everything they had observed to Germany—which I doubted they would go that far—there would be nothing for them to catch us on.

In the end, I had to make myself look like a mage who wielded divine power through a Papal See staff, while never actually using divine power for even a moment.

Narke disguised himself as a priest so he could purify the water in the two holy water fonts in the chapel—the one at the entrance and the one the Archbishop would use. Churches had holy water fonts by the entrance, and people usually dipped their fingers into the water and made the sign of the cross when entering. If the Emperor dipped his fingers into the entrance holy water and became poisoned before the Archbishop even sprinkled him with it, our entire operation would have been pointless. Narke had to check it first.

So Narke, who might actually have to use divine power in earnest, took on the role of a priest, while I, who couldn’t do that, became a Lakai.

The remaining question was who should be the first to stop the holy water from being sprinkled on the Emperor: the Lakai or the court priest.

To minimize the amount of information we gave the culprit, we decided that only one of us would step forward first. The question was, should divine power appear first and mana afterward, or should mana appear first and divine power afterward?

If we chose the former, I would actually be putting myself at greater risk of being attacked. There were several reasons, but the simplest was this: with everyone’s suspicions already at their peak, if I released mana, it would be difficult to prove that I wasn’t someone trying to use the confusion to harm the Emperor.

Even if the difference was slight, we couldn’t afford to lower the level of danger reaching the enemy. We had to raise it gradually instead. In other words, we shouldn’t deepen the doubts forming in our allies’ minds. We needed to eliminate those doubts.

The answer was obvious this time as well. We didn’t need to think about it any further.

So, since I was only able to use mana, I went first and posed as a Vatican mage. This made the culprit think that the mage they had to deal with might not actually be capable of using divine power, lowering the chances of their poison being purified by divine power while making them overestimate their own chances of success. They would be more inclined to think that it was worth taking a chance and trying to find a way through.

Once the doubts of everyone who wasn’t the culprit had reached their peak, I deliberately held back and gave the culprit a physical opening. Then Narke, who could use divine power, stopped them just as they decided to put their final plan into action.

That was our plan. Which was why I had to be a Lakai, and Narke had to be the court priest.

And in the end, we protected the Emperor. The disaster of the Austro-Hungarian Empire becoming Pleroma’s puppet state overnight never came to pass. It had only been twelve hours since we arrived in Vienna. In the span of half a day, the bleak future that had seemed impossible to change had changed so much.

The clock tower’s hands pointed to a little past 6:30 in the morning. The bluish haze had completely disappeared, leaving the world bathed in white. I walked through the Hofburg Palace with a Vatican priest holding onto my arm, thinking about useless things like whether I should start wearing short-sleeved shirts soon. The fact that I could afford to think about things like that was a blessing in itself.

The Atropos was probably still being transported in bottles of Acqua Panna, but Narke’s and my mission was over now. With the help of the German Empire and the Papal States’ mages, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary would recover the Acqua Panna that had spread throughout the empire before noon today. So I wanted to share this relief with my partner in the operation as soon as possible.

I looked around at the courtyard the Vatican mages had purified and said, “Let’s stop walking now, Narke.”

“Ah!”

I snickered at the Vatican mage who stopped dead in his tracks, mouth hanging open, while still holding onto my arm.

“You really thought I wouldn’t notice?”

“Aw, what a shame. I thought I’d fooled you~”

‘Guess he didn’t use Insight.’

Narke quickly snapped his fingers, dispelling the illusion he had been showing me. I cast a soundproofing spell on Narke as he stretched with a refreshed expression and said, “We should get to the embassy before His Majesty comes looking for us.”

“Mm. We should.”

Narke answered without much enthusiasm, then looked at me with a broad grin.

“But how often are we ever going to have a reason to come to the Austrian Imperial Palace? There probably won’t be another time when the two of us come here together, will there? Maybe we’ll meet again through diplomacy when we’re around fifty, though… When that day comes, it’ll feel strange in a way. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could walk around this courtyard then, reminiscing about how we protected the Emperor and chased Pleroma here during the last years of our teens? I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sunlight from today, even then.”

Whenever I sensed something slightly different in the way my friend here spoke, I found myself smiling. It wasn’t a bad thing. If anything, it suited my own sensibilities rather well, which was why I smiled.

I shook my head.

“You’re really planning to stop and sightsee around here after all this? You’ve got some nerve…”

“Haha! It’s not like that.”

Narke spoke using divine power.

— “I just enjoyed being with you. It’s finally over, Lukas.”

Yeah. Now we could go home. I answered with a smile.

We walked on in silence after that. For some reason, Narke seemed deep in thought. There were other Vatican mages moving around the Imperial Palace as well. Eventually, we stopped in a garden decorated with neatly trimmed, square-shaped shrubs.

“Lukas. Are you really okay after getting hit with that holy water earlier?”

“Of course. I’m perfectly fine, aren’t I?”

“…You look fine, but it still doesn’t sit right with me.”

“What does it matter? Look at me. I’m alive and well.”

“That sounds just like you… Actually, I was looking for some water so I could wash your face before we left.”

‘Hmm.’

Come to think of it, we had finished everything, yet Narke had been wandering around the gardens for some reason. Now I understood.

Narke gave me a push from behind.

The garden we entered led to a small hunting ground, and there was a watering station for horses up ahead. Of course, people could probably drink from it too. There were similar drinking fountains in Anhalt, and Bavaria had them as well, so their purpose was probably more or less the same. I turned on the tap and quickly washed my face.

I could hear birds flapping their wings between the trees. After washing away the traces of holy water that had dried on my skin, I stood there quietly and looked around.

The night had been unusually clear, and the morning sky was just as clear. The rustling of the willows was refreshing. The wind brushed past my cheeks. As I stood there quietly, Narke, one step behind me, spoke softly.

“I don’t think I’ll ever forget the day I spent with you.”

“Me neither.”

I answered quietly.

There was no way I could forget it, for many reasons.

The crisis in which one of Europe’s great powers had nearly been devoured alive by Pleroma had passed one of its greatest turning points at six-thirty that morning.

This was only the beginning. But we—and the Empire—were already completely different from how we had been last night, when we knew nothing about the Atropos or the Prime Minister’s death. Under normal circumstances, the Empire and the continent would have been left to face ruin at Pleroma’s hands without ever knowing what was happening. But with today’s operation succeeding, that would no longer happen. We would not be left helpless against this threat.

And if Narke hadn’t been my partner in this operation, I would probably be running all over the Austro-Hungarian Empire even now. In that sense, I knew I would never forget this experience of truly working one-on-one with Narke.

I smiled and asked, “But we’re going to keep working together from now on. You’re only planning to remember this one time?”

“Huh? Ah, hahaha. I guess you’re right~”

I laughed along silently, then looked at the sunlight pouring down and said to Narke, “I’m grateful for the will of the Papal See.”

“It was your work. Is there really any reason to be grateful?”

Well, it was you who delivered it and brought about the result. Thinking that, I shrugged, and Narke continued.

“Still, one thing’s certain. The Empire may not remember, but we’ll remember what happened this morning.”

“If you’re saying that because you’re worried I’ll be upset about not getting any credit for saving the Emperor, don’t be. I’m fine with it. Whatever praise Prussia gives us isn’t worth much anyway. And…”

I spoke with a hint of mockery.

“The Empire will probably think it knows exactly what we did and how we did it.”

“Yeah. They’ll keep believing that, so the two of us can fool the Empire completely~”

Narke giggled. I gave a small laugh.

I had already been worried that Austria-Hungary might run its mouth and let Germany know how we had carried out this operation. Hearing Narke say that made me feel much more at ease. The Vatican had said they would help us, but they didn’t even know that I was Nikolaus Ernst. In that sense, their help was only half baked.

Narke turned halfway toward the exit and continued.

“Until the day the Empire learns everything, let’s keep fooling them properly.”

Until the day I reveal that I am Nikolaus Ernst. I nodded.

It was time to leave the rest of this matter to others.

We disguised ourselves as Vatican mages and, with their help, secretly slipped out of the imperial palace.

After warping back to the embassy, we sent a letter announcing our return to Germany, then set foot on Prussian soil even before the letter could arrive.

7:00 AM.

We were at the Hohenzollern Imperial Palace. However, we couldn’t meet any members of the Imperial Family or other high-ranking officials right away. They had been holding an emergency meeting since dawn to deal with our report on the Atropos, and they were still at it. The situation was serious enough to warrant declaring a national state of emergency all over again, so naturally, they were too busy to meet with anyone. Honestly, if any of them had tried to see us, I probably would have needed to rest as soon as I arrived after being forced to face people I wasn’t particularly eager to see.

After undergoing various medical examinations and giving our investigation report, we left the Investigation Bureau. By then, it was 11:00 AM.

Bang!

“We’re back.”

…I’m not entirely sure why I had to say something like that to these people.

I stomped my foot against the floor with an audible thud, saluted the seniors in front of me, and took a seat with Narke. The Commander was the one who had ordered this intelligence operation, while these 91st and 98th Units people had absolutely nothing to do with our mission. So there was nothing else I needed to report to them about where we’d been or how long we’d been gone. Atropos had been classified information from the start, and they didn’t even know the substance existed. Naturally, the intelligence operation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was classified too—though since the two of us had taken the selection exam alongside the other A-Class members, we couldn’t exactly hide the fact that we’d gone away on a classified mission.

Silence fell.

For some reason, there was an awkwardness hanging in the air. When I made eye contact with Mecklenburg, he turned away with a slightly awkward expression. The other members of the 98th were more than awkward; they’d been avoiding eye contact from the very beginning. Leo looked at me with his usual cold gaze.

I looked at my other friends.

Zähringen gave me the faintest smile for a moment before quickly turning his head forward again. Ulrike, sitting among the seniors, froze slightly before glancing around and giving me a small nod of greeting—and judging by the way he seemed to struggle to keep his facial muscles under control, apparently seeing a familiar face was enough to make him want to burst out laughing. Elias, meanwhile, didn’t care whether there were seniors around and was simply grinning from ear to ear. After confirming that all my friends were alive and well, I looked forward again.

‘Hmm. So.’

I wasn’t particularly bothered by having returned to Germany in less than a day, nor was sitting here with my seniors especially uncomfortable. The real question was why on earth everyone had been gathered here.

The layout of the meeting room we always used had changed in the short time we’d been away in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There was a U-shaped table in the center, with other seats arranged around the corners of the room. Regardless of their unit, anyone without the rank of captain or vice captain was seated in the corner seats. As a vice captain, I was obviously supposed to sit at the central table.

There were only two seats left at the table, though, and Narke, apparently having used Insight, didn’t move toward the corner after saluting. He went straight to one of those seats.

Seeing that, I had a pretty good idea what we’d been gathered here for—or rather, what they’d told us to gather for. The seniors’ reactions made it even more obvious.

The representative of the 91st Unit explained why we had been called here.

“Now that everyone up to the 101st Unit has arrived, we will begin. Today, a new drug developed by Pleroma was discovered in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It’s called Atropos. When combined with artificial mana, it becomes a deadly poison capable of killing a person. When combined with the mana in the human body, it becomes a mind control drug.”

‘…I was wondering if it would be this, but they’re really talking about it…’

Wasn’t this the very thing I had painstakingly figured out while running back and forth between the hotel last night? I take back what I said about them not even knowing about the existence of the substance called Atropos. They already knew. And it wasn’t just Albertina Hohenzollern, the representative of the 91st Unit. Everyone else knew as well.

It felt strange hearing here the exact information I had just rattled off in front of the scribe while giving my report.

‘We made those deductions in Austria last night, and this morning, a senior in Germany is reading them aloud while I sit here as a junior and listen…’

It felt like I was playing two roles at once. Maybe this was what Adrian Askanien felt like.

I also understood why the seniors were avoiding eye contact with us. What I didn’t understand was why they were going so far as to deliberately look away. It was starting to make things awkward for me too.

Meanwhile, Narke looked positively delighted, his eyes shining.

The representative of the 91st Unit cleared his throat and continued reading from the file.

“Ahem. According to information obtained by our German Imperial intelligence agents, all 16.43 tons of the mineral water Acqua Panna currently imported into the Austro-Hungarian Empire are actually Atropos. Five units of Imperial mages from the German Empire have currently been deployed throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire to eliminate the Atropos spread across the country. The Archdiocese of Vienna has also been contaminated by the substance. According to our intelligence agents, it was also used in the form of holy water to poison—”

‘Right…’

But everyone knew the people actually involved were sitting right in front of them. Did they really have to keep pointedly avoiding us? Even the 91st Unit’s representative hadn’t looked at us even once. Their awkward attempts at avoiding eye contact were making the whole room feel like a bed of nails. Just as I was starting to feel uncomfortable from all the secondhand awkwardness, the 91st Unit’s representative pressed a hand to his forehead and set the file he was holding down on the desk with a sharp slap.

Tap—

“That’s enough.”

“…Pardon?”

The 91st Unit’s vice representative quickly asked after the bizarre interruption. The representative lifted his head with a resigned expression and looked at us.

“You all know everything already, don’t you? Lord Askanien. Lord Farnese.”

As though those words were a signal, all the eyes in the room turned toward us at once. The 91st Unit’s representative gave us a faint smile.

“Good work on the Austro-Hungarian intelligence operation. Welcome back.”