Chapter 455

Einsiedel didn’t react. He simply looked down at me with a smile.

“You’re being awfully certain.”

He was probably thinking that I’d decided he had joined forces with the French imperial cult based on nothing more than some sleeping pills.

‘Hah…’

Every time I blinked with the right side of my face pressed against the floor, it felt like whiskey was getting into my eye. It stung. I squeezed my right eye shut and grimaced, twisting up the corner of my mouth.

“…Just look at the dozens, even hundreds, of painkillers produced by the countless pharmaceutical companies in this world. There isn’t just one kind of sleeping pill, either.”

“So?”

“I don’t know how pathetic you think the Empire is, but as a rule, the Investigation Bureau keeps records of the drugs Pleroma has used while committing crimes on Imperial territory.”

With competition between dioceses so fierce within Pleroma, it was highly unlikely that each diocese wasn’t developing its own technologies. If they didn’t, their performance would suffer and they’d fall behind the competition. I’d seen it with my own eyes. The mansion where the Archbishop of Freiburg had taken me had a laboratory, where he developed drugs for his own diocese.

“Coincidentally, shortly after news broke that France had stolen the parure, His Highness Emanuel Wittelsbach was attacked. Then more than two hundred mages disappeared. So, what are you supposed to think when you put those facts together? Ah, all of this was Pleroma’s doing. But now, which part of Pleroma exactly?”

I felt the hand around my neck loosen, and continued.

“Why bother dragging it out? The important thing is that the sleeping pills used in the Emanuel Wittelsbach rampage incident were identical to those used in the Grand Hotel terrorist attack. And on the surface, the party behind the Grand Hotel attack was the Osnabrück Diocese. Doesn’t that tell you everything you need to know?”

“…….”

Einsiedel merely looked down at me with a gentle smile. Every time I looked at his face, Elias seemed to overlap with him. Maybe it was the hair and eye color. And yet he smiled like Heike, too, with the same striking presence that caught your attention at first glance.

The moment of observation didn’t last long. There was no reason for it to. I continued.

“At the time, Pleroma made Emanuel Wittelsbach rampage in order to steal the technology developed by the Österreich-Este mage during his lifetime, in line with the French cult’s expansion of influence. And when I saw that they’d entrusted the job to the Osnabrück Diocese, which had briefly grown closer to Pleroma because of the Pentathlon incident—though perhaps you were the one who volunteered first… I was honestly surprised. I thought, So the Osnabrück Diocese finally decided to pull off a massive score within Pleroma. But then…”

I let out a laugh and narrowed my eyes.

“Don’t you find that funny, no matter how you look at it?”

“…….”

“A diocese that went behind Pleroma’s back and made a deal with the Catacombs to get spell formulas, without even sharing them with Pleroma’s leadership, is now working for Pleroma?”

“Hm…”

Einsiedel made a low sound, as if something about my words didn’t sit right with him. Was I getting on his nerves? No. I could tell instinctively that he was looking past my words, listening to what lay beneath them, thinking.

His lips moved.

“This isn’t it….”

He had picked up on something from what I said. No, he was evaluating it.

“What else?”

“…….”

Clatter—Bang!

Without saying a word, I opened my left eye wide, and Einsiedel sent mana down through my neck. My shoulder slammed into the bedside table on reflex. Mana like needles stabbed wildly through my veins. Einsiedel tilted his head.

“So you think I joined hands with France because of that? That’s not all.”

“…Hah.”

“You couldn’t possibly have concluded that I joined hands with France based on nothing but sleeping pills. Don’t try to fool someone who can’t be fooled…”

Einsiedel brought his face right up to mine. I raised the corner of my mouth at his words. He slowly blinked, telling me to keep going. I studied the patterns in his bright blue irises before slowly opening my mouth.

“…It was only natural for the Osnabrück Diocese to come under scrutiny after the Pentathlon incident. Ugh! If they— if they manage to investigate them… they can’t help but discover that the Archbishop of Freiburg stole Osnabrück’s advanced ideas, and eventually… you people, who’ve been accumulating technology behind Pleroma’s leadership’s back… could end up in the same position as the Archbishop of Freiburg.”

Every time I got a word out, another attack came. Honestly… His lack of patience was so absurd that I couldn’t help but laugh. I caught my breath and finished speaking. Einsiedel smiled just like I did and shook his head.

“Not that.”

“Fine, then. Let’s continue. You even refused the leadership’s offer to promote you to archbishop before.”

I clenched my teeth against the pain after getting that far. Then I continued.

“The juniors in the leadership must feel very comfortable having you around. Do you really think the other dioceses don’t know that you aren’t blindly pursuing Pleroma’s growth and interests?”

“…….”

“You were never hoping for Pleroma to succeed in the first place. You never were.”

You only joined Pleroma because of Werner Strauch. You had no other purpose.

“I hope you destroy it with everything you have. By the time the next century arrives… make it a place that no one remembers.”

How many people in Pleroma could say something like that? I think he may be the first and last.

He is Pleroma, yet he is also a spy planted within Pleroma. He’s loyal to Werner Strauch, and for the sake of that one primary goal of his, he can join hands with anyone outside Pleroma. Just as he secretly joined forces with the Catacombs without the leadership knowing.

That was why I had been weighing the possibility that he might be walking a line between Pleroma and another group that could offer him something to gain—the French cult—while pretending to remain loyal to Pleroma.

“Haah…”

Einsiedel closed his eyes and sighed. When he opened them again, blue irises stood out against his pale face. I remained silent, watching his shadowed eyes and the faint smile he wore constantly, like a madman. White hair fell against the side of his face. I could hear his breathing beside my ear. He spoke, pausing between each word.

“Is there really nothing you desperately want?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

Grip.

Einsiedel grabbed me by the hair at the back of my head and pulled me upright. I stared straight at his face without changing my expression. He was just as expressionless. I shook my head and spoke.

“As it happens, you have another incentive. Pleroma can bring the dead back to life, but apparently, you don’t know how to resurrect someone who has already become Pleroma. In other words, you know how to bring a person back as Pleroma, but you don’t know how to bring a Pleroma back as Pleroma.”

“…….”

“Werner Strauch, who had already been baptized, could—”

BANG!

The world shook. I slammed into the wall behind the headboard, grabbing onto his arm and grimacing. Divine power crackled through his hand and arced out. Even that was enough to make him react like this? Yes. I understood.

If you asked whether I regretted ending Werner Strauch’s life even for a moment, I couldn’t honestly say that I had gladly killed someone, nor could I say I would gladly kill him again if I turn back time. Even so, there was no reason for me to compromise now. If Werner Strauch hadn’t died, I would have died by his hand. And if that were the case, then what would become of the justice Einsiedel spoke of?

No. He had never spoken of justice. He had only lamented.

Still, I truly understood why he reacted so violently whenever Werner Strauch was mentioned. I couldn’t deny that I had people like that in my own life, either…

When that thought reached me, my gaze almost shifted toward Elias. But I kept my eyes on Einsiedel alone. He was continuing to lose his composure. With blood rushing to my head, I tried to answer in a steady voice.

“…could not be brought to life again, so you had to find another way.”

The hand pressing against my throat tightened little by little. I continued without a trace of a smile.

“Did the French cult tempt you with the promise that they could make it possible? That they could bring Werner Strauch, ngh… back to life?”

“Hearing that name from your lips is quite something. Do you have no shame?”

I naturally gathered mana into my hand. Just before the crackling sound could erupt into a deafening blast, he released me, and I collapsed beneath the headboard. The mana pathway connecting my head and heart finally opened again. Einsiedel’s hair fell toward me.

“Our Saint Nikolaus may offer charity to all mankind, yet it seems he cannot be a savior to the likes of me.”

“…….”

“Please, have mercy on this humble servant…”

I couldn’t see his expression. His hair had fallen over his face, and my eyes were still blurred from the whiskey that had gotten into them. But I could tell that his words, though mocking, lacked the usual mocking tone that should have accompanied them. It felt as though despair were spreading to me, beginning at the tips of my toes and slowly consuming my entire body.

“…….”

“You asked whether I was desperate.”

His emotionless voice flowed without a hint of inflection.

“I am desperate. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

“…….”

“I consider honesty the greatest virtue, so I’ll deal with you without deception. There’s no need to read too much into my words. But… regardless of that, I need to hear how you brought this whole situation here.”

His face drew closer. No—I was being pulled toward his face. I stared into his bright eyes, tinged faintly with gray, and remained silent.

“Only then can I decide whether to accept you. Are you going to keep avoiding the point? How long do you intend to keep spouting nonsense? How much more are you planning to disappoint me?”

“Look who’s talking.”

Without closing my eyes, I stared straight at him and moved my lips.

“I’m the one who wants to ask how much longer you intend to disappoint me.”

“…….”

“Why do you think I’ve been putting up with you? Have you never considered that while you’re testing me, I’m testing you too? How pathetic…”

“…….”

“You’ve listened to everything I’ve said and still haven’t figured anything out. You’re pestering me because you can’t come up with the conclusion you should have reached by now, and you expect me to believe you’ll actually understand if I tell you something?”

Yes, Einsiedel was right. He was. But he still hadn’t figured it out. Either he hadn’t, or he wanted to hear it directly from me.

I hadn’t concluded that he had joined forces with the French imperial cult just because of a sleeping pill. It had played a role in forming my hypothesis—about fifty percent of it, in fact—but it wasn’t enough to make me certain. The other forty percent hinged on this.

What magic had the French imperial family placed on Charles d’Orléans, the person who stole the parure?

‘A spell that erases memories of specific keywords when divine power enters the body.’

Who had originally used this spell?

The Catacombs. That’s why I’d met Marian Baum of the Catacombs back then and asked whether the technique had somehow leaked out.

He’d answered me like this: “There’s no way this leaked. Even within the Catacombs, only those with authorization know this formula.”

He’d said that it might have leaked if there had been a traitor like before. But quite some time had passed since then, and Marian Baum had never sent me a letter saying they’d discovered a traitor colluding with France, or that anyone’s behavior seemed suspicious. Since there was no further evidence to verify it, I could rule out the traitor hypothesis.

But the problem remained.

When the Catacombs exchanged information with the Osnabrück Diocese, they had shared nothing except the double-spatial magic technique. They hadn’t shared the spell that automatically erased memories when divine power entered the body, either.

There was no way for the technique to have leaked, so there was no reason for the French cult to possess it. And yet the French cult knew this technique. How?

I spoke quietly to Einsiedel, who was waiting for my words patiently.

“There’s only one thing I can tell you. ‘Lou Bahr’ certainly did a great many things.”

“…….”

Einsiedel exhaled softly. Then he began laughing like a madman. As though satisfied, he looked down at me with a faint smile.

The Archbishop of Freiburg who had built up his identity in Osnabrück. His existence was the unexpected variable. His ability to transform—and his very existence—allowed him to sneak into the Pentathlon’s main stadium, disappear in the blink of an eye, and even leave a note in front of his target while making it seem as though no one had ever been there.

Lou Bahr was a member of Pleroma, ranked high enough to steal classified information. Presumably, he had accompanied them to the negotiations between the Catacombs and the Osnabrück Diocese. Then he had slipped away unnoticed, broken into the Catacombs’ archives, and returned.

Just as he had always done—stealing Osnabrück’s confidential documents one by one and smuggling them back to his own diocese.

Now I had my answer.

“The technique that makes someone forget the memory associated with a specific keyword the moment divine power enters their body” exists either in Freiburg, or in both Osnabrück and Freiburg. And ever since the Archbishop of Freiburg disappeared, the Freiburg Archdiocese has effectively ceased its activities. Even if there are still followers remaining, they are under the leadership’s strict surveillance and control. Its internal records have also been moved somewhere the leadership cannot access, so there’s no way for anything new to be developed or for them to take their next step from there.

That leaves only Osnabrück as the place that still possesses the technique.

Perhaps Freiburg had the technique all to itself, and Osnabrück took it back after the Archbishop disappeared. Or perhaps Lou Bahr had already stored a copy in Osnabrück as well. There are plenty of possible ways it could have gotten there. I had already found the answer I was looking for, so I wasn’t going to waste time narrowing down every possible route.

Einsiedel let out a deep breath and smiled.

“Satisfying. There is a cult in France… Yes, you’re right. I joined hands with Terminus Eukairia of France. So, what’s next?”

At last, I knew its name. The cult that had taken control of the French Imperial Family was called by that long name. Greek, was it?

What mattered was that, in his mind, I had passed the first test, while he was still undecided about me. He hadn’t passed my test yet. Either way, we both had something we wanted from each other. If he wasn’t willing to cooperate willingly, then I had no reason to make things easy for him either. I slowly sat up and leaned against the headboard.

Now he would test me a second time, and I would continue assessing him as well. From this point on, I would commit his nonverbal reactions to memory and see what answer he ultimately gave me.

“All right. First, let’s clear this up. It may sound rather obvious, but I knew you were behind this incident the moment I realized that Heike Einsiedel and Mikhail Ismailov had been attacked at the same time. Keep that in mind as we move forward.”

“…….”

“It seems France wanted other artifacts besides the parure. I don’t know where Terminus Eukairia heard that the Arma Christi were valuable artifacts, but they used their contacts in Germany—that is, you and the Osnabrück Diocese—to steal the holy relic from Trier.”

Einsiedel stared at me without expression. I rested a hand against my temple and continued.

“But the Arma Christi aren’t only here. There are actually more relics in the Papal States. That means Terminus Eukairia has plenty of reason to plant a spy there as well. And as it happens, the holy relic in Trier and the True Cross that had been brought from Spain to the Papal See disappeared at exactly the same time. What do you think that means?”

“…….”

“It means they have an accomplice not only in Germany, but at the Papal See as well. So I decided to run an experiment.”

At the word experiment, Einsiedel raised an eyebrow, maintaining his relaxed smile.

“I had a warning letter sent that could easily be interpreted as saying, ‘There is a culprit within the Papal See.’ It was essentially a form of bait. If there was an immediate reaction to the provocation, that would serve as evidence that there really was a culprit within the Papal See.”

“Hahahaha!”

Einsiedel burst into an unpredictable fit of laughter. Was he pleased? It didn’t matter. Every one of his nonverbal reactions was being stored in my memory.

“So what kind of reaction should I expect? An accomplice who panics after taking the bait has no choice but to contact the person who gave them their orders. If they’re exposed as the culprit, that means the person who commissioned the crime will be exposed as well. So the French Imperial Family, frightened by the situation, contacted their accomplice in Germany. ‘Go and stop the two cardinals.’”

“Interesting.”

“So you, their accomplice in Germany, decided to feed us false information and throw the investigation off. And, conveniently enough, you immediately contacted Emanuel Wittelsbach through the Hermetische Gesellschaft.”

“Hm.”

“How did you know Emanuel Wittelsbach would contact Sir Nikolaus Ernst? How could you be so confident in making a move like that?”

“If I had made him contact you directly, wouldn’t the whole act have looked rather crude?”

“You know your stuff.”

Emanuel Wittelsbach had already been rescued by Sir Nikolaus Ernst once. And since the Osnabrück Diocese was the one that drove Emanuel into a rampage, they had no choice but to know that. On top of that, Sir Nikolaus Ernst—Lukas Askanien—was the person who had uncovered the culprit behind the French parure incident. Einsiedel, of all people, had no choice but to be certain that Emanuel would contact me and act accordingly.

It was a good choice. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy watching my opponent play his hand.

“It’s a minor detail, but that’s when I realized it. You know that I’m a secret cardinal of the Papal See.”

“I wonder how you managed to make the timing work.”

Einsiedel spoke slowly.

He was referring to the time the relic was discovered at the Hermetische Gesellschaft. The chairman and his secretary believed they had found the relic the previous day. Einsiedel was probably asking to test me once again, but that question did nothing to raise my assessment of him.

“What’s that supposed to mean, coming from the one who deliberately made sure the timing didn’t match? You must have warped a rosary with a tracking spell on it to the Hermetische Gesellschaft and cast a mind manipulation spell on them. So let me thank you while I’m at it.”

I placed a hand on Einsiedel’s shoulder and let out a mocking laugh.

“Thanks to you, I managed to solve the assassination incident of the Austro-Hungarian prime minister. Though I am curious how you got your hands on Atropos.”

Einsiedel still wore that languid smile. I slowly stretched my neck and continued.

“The problem is, after all the effort you put in, I should’ve started bowing my head to you by now. Instead, I ordered the Papal See to be placed under strict lockdown. That means your attempt to throw the investigation off failed, and the Papal See’s accomplice must have contacted France again, crying and begging for help after hearing about the lockdown order. And France must have pressured you again.”

“…….”

“So you used Atropos on Ulrike Kleist, too, to throw me off again? You had some damn cross dropped right in front of him, then manipulated his memories so he’d believe he’d found it several days ago… You really went to a lot of trouble. The problem was, by then, I was already running out of patience.”

Einsiedel watched me with one arm propped against the bed. If calmly listening with that crooked smile was simply his default attitude, I had to admit it was quite something. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

“I was getting tired of putting up with you hiding yourself away and scheming from somewhere I couldn’t see. So I started thinking about how I could force you to come out.”

The mana flowing from his body began faintly drawing toward me. His shift in focus was obvious. What he wanted to hear, what he needed to know in order to measure my capabilities, was finally coming.

“I set things up in front of the Hermetische Gesellschaft and Ulrike Kleist, following the exact same path you took. Then I passed the information on to the Papal See. ‘I received notes at both locations asking me to meet in Munich on Sunday. After reading them, I may have to reconsider the theory that there’s an accomplice inside the Papal See.’”

“…….”

“They must have been delighted to hear it. The Papal See’s accomplice, too. He would have excitedly passed the news on to the French cult, saying, ‘Thanks to Sir Einsiedel leaving those notes in front of the cardinals, the people investigating the case are starting to let go of their suspicions!’ Then the French cult would pass the good news back to you—that your mission had succeeded and was now complete. And yet…”

I snapped my fingers and created an illusion with divine power.

“You, the one receiving all the praise, had to freeze when you realized you hadn’t done any of it. Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

A neatly folded blue note fell in front of him. Einsiedel’s twisted smile remained as his eyes lingered on the note before slowly returning to me.

BOOM!

A razor-sharp surge of mana shot out in front of him. The pressure of it cut a thin red line across his skin. I forced his trembling body down and smiled.

“Must have made your heart skip a beat, thinking the Archbishop of Freiburg had returned.”

“Hahahaha…”

Einsiedel, still sprawled on the floor with me gripping his collar, let out a soft, wheezing laugh. But unlike his usual almost deranged smile, his eyes were fixed completely on me. Greed. Satisfaction. Both flashed through those gleaming blue eyes.

The assessment of my capabilities was over. He was ready to accept me.

Because he had no intention of seriously continuing his dealings with the French cult, nor did he intend to support a Pleroma running wild with Atropos. He must have been looking for a new ally to maintain the balance of power. Just as he always had, he was simply looking for someone new to switch sides to.

I looked into Einsiedel’s eyes and murmured, “Weren’t you glad I was the one who showed up instead? Now that your questions are answered, let’s stop wasting time on trivial matters.”

Divine power crackled through the hand gripping his collar. With a veil of white light between us, I looked into his eyes and whispered the words I knew he’d like to hear.

“Now, why don’t you tell me about the plan you’ve been putting together?”