Chapter 558

It was a potion.

The moment I realized what Ulrike had in his mouth, my heart began racing all over again. This was hardly a situation where I could laugh, nor was it a time to let my guard down, yet the tension drained from my shoulders.

“Just a moment.”

Almost dazed, I spoke into the artifact connected to Sophia Nussbaum.

Haha… A breathy sound escaped my lungs. Honestly, I wanted nothing more than to run over and throw my arms around Ulrike right then and there. If he could see my face properly, he would probably catch me smiling in a way I shouldn’t in front of a camera. I wasn’t happy for such shallow reasons as Ulrike bringing something useful or giving us another pair of hands. Was it because I admired how brilliantly he’d used his wits? That was part of it, certainly. But the Command couldn’t possibly have given Ulrike any useful information. They must have told him much the same things they’d told me…

And yet, judging by the fact that he’d brought a potion, Ulrike had figured out from the message alone that the blaze here wasn’t an ordinary fire, but a terrorist weapon that absorbed something from people. Perhaps the Command had told him that even Narke and I were struggling. Even so, it was entirely thanks to Ulrike’s quick thinking and ability to act that he’d seen through the situation and prepared a countermeasure in such a short time. His ability to execute was evident in the way he struck cleanly at a single objective without wasting a second move. His talents were merely overshadowed by his ranking in the preliminary selection exam, but, like Heike, he was someone who shone brighter in actual combat. Even when he wasn’t fighting, he moved as though he were on a battlefield.

But that still wasn’t what made me smile. Right now, the joy of seeing a friend outweighed all my other admiration.

BOOM—! RUMBLE—!

It was an unfamiliar feeling. I wondered if even my mind was turning back into that of a high schooler, when the noise around me grew louder. So do not fear, for I am with you—The flames, blocked by the pink mana dome I’d raised my arm to create, surged toward the ceiling and spread overhead as if they were about to devour us. I hadn’t put up a barrier around us until now because merely keeping the fire at bay did nothing to help extinguish it or rescue anyone. Still, it might be worth trying for a moment.

Trapped inside the dome, Ulrike asked coolly, “Oh. If you just force it back with mana, won’t it absorb that, too? It was absorbing a ridiculous amount on the way in.”

“That… It’s unstable, but I can manage somehow with the sheer amount of mana I have.”

I had no choice but to give him a vague answer. Ulrike wasn’t wrong. Narke’s mana had pushed the fire back for a moment before being absorbed and dispersed by the flames. The divine power he’d channeled through a special spell seemed to fare better, retaining more of its original form, but it wasn’t completely unaffected either. Meanwhile, my mana remained completely intact. I still had no idea why I alone seemed less affected by this fire—or not affected at all.

“…….”

Once again, I was the only one. I was reminded of that day when something that couldn’t be achieved with the Archduke’s blood had succeeded through mine. The day the impossible happened, and I crossed from one world to another. I tried to shake off the memory and lifted my head.

I couldn’t afford to think about it.

It was true that it was difficult, too. Even if this peculiar fire couldn’t do anything to me, the heat at the scene and the fine toxic fumes were more than enough to cloud my mind. So before my mental and physical strength gave out and the barrier began to waver, I needed to pour in more mana to prevent an even bigger problem.

I immediately pointed at the hose Ulrike was biting down on.

“What’s that? Potion?”

“Don’t know! I’m running out of strength! Hurry, hurry! Quick!”

“Huh… Mmph?!”

Ulrike gestured for me to take off my breathing apparatus, then shoved the hose into my mouth without warning. The thought of sharing oral bacteria flashed through my mind, but it was a petty instinct that had no place here. My surprise and gratitude quickly swept it aside. As soon as I tasted it, I realized it was potion, just as I’d suspected. And not just any potion…

“Luise. You filled this entire tank with Wittelsbach potion…?”

I spat out the hose and stared at him in disbelief. Even with sweat pouring down my face and my breath catching in my throat, I could hardly believe it. Ulrike had brought five whole liters of a potent potion that could keep someone going all day with just a finger-sized vial. Just thinking about how much that must have cost made me let out a hollow laugh.

Ulrike shoved the hose back into my mouth and shouted, his voice booming.

“Of course! What’s the point of having a good team otherwise? Why aren’t you drinking more?!”

“No, no. That’s not what I…”

I grasped the hose in my mouth and trailed off, feeling awkward. I was fine. If there was any potion for me to drink, I’d rather let Ulrike replenish his strength with it. I pretended to drink, swallowed a couple of drops, then handed him the hose.

Ulrike wiped the hose on his clothes before shoving it into Narke’s mouth, who had also abruptly removed his breathing apparatus. Narke burst out laughing in surprise, returned the potion to Ulrike, then took a potion from his own clutch and drank it. I ground out the small flames flickering on the floor beneath my boot and spoke quickly.

“I’m glad you came. Not because you brought the potion, but because you…”

The moment he arrived, an inexplicable sense of hope began to take hold in my chest. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t afraid of the flames, still pounding against the barrier like waves. There had been a time when I wasn’t afraid of them, but now that memory seemed almost like a dream, so heavily did terror weigh on my heart. Yet the hope that had pushed down my fear now made my heart race for an entirely different reason. I wanted to tell Ulrike how I felt while I still had time, but he raised his chin as if to say I was stating the obvious.

“Glad I came? I was called in too, you know. They summoned the entire 101st Unit except for our friends in the south and… Heike. They probably called Elias too, knowing he couldn’t come, just to spite him. How could I possibly stay away!”

Ulrike let out a mischievous laugh.

“But I’m glad too. There are three of us now, so we should be able to finish faster. Come on, let’s go! You don’t need to use divine power on me. I brought this specifically so you wouldn’t have to…”

Ulrike lifted his head and watched the movement of the acrid smoke and dark red flames, frowning. He couldn’t wear his respirator while drinking the potion, so even inside the barrier, he occasionally had to gasp for air. I nodded toward the wand resting securely at his waist.

“Luise. If you direct your mana downward, the fire will surge upward. But if you focus on the upper floors, things could go wrong while your guard is down. Still, it’s better than only watching below. Let’s make a quick sweep and get out.”

“Sounds good.”

As soon as Ulrike finished speaking, he put the hose in his mouth and raised his fingers to count down. Three, two, one.

KABOOM—!

The barrier expanded outward in an instant, forcing the flames back. The building jolted and shook. I doubted I’d imagined it. Ulrike let out a startled yell and began wildly spraying water from the fire hose at the flames clinging to the ceiling. That wasn’t something we could do at the smelting furnace, where oil particles might be scattered everywhere. I made my way to a window where the fire had already been extinguished and handed the mage from the 97th Unit over to the people below. The moment I stepped into the corridor, I saw my friends struggling against the wall of fire that had surged back almost immediately. The flames coating the walls made me feel as though I was being roasted just by approaching them.

— Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths.

At Narke’s incantation, a thin barrier spread across the floor, and it began to form a path in the most literal sense. Seeing its shape, he sharply pulled his left hand to the side. The fire burning along the left side of the path was pushed back by divine power spreading diagonally across it. He was clearly checking whether anyone was on the other side before moving. When it was time for his right hand, the one holding his staff, to move, all he did was let it tremble. I opened my mouth.

— Guide me in your truth and teach me.

BOOM—! FWOOSH—!

I spread my hand in Narke’s place and pushed the flames toward the wall on the right. Heat rushed down from above. At that moment, the stream of water Ulrike sent flying crashed into the flames, which had curled like a wave.

— May he rule from sea to sea and from the River to the ends of the earth.

As Ulrike spoke in a low voice, he ran his hand along the hose. As though standing on the riverbed and watching the river flow, the green mana that had burst forth to fill my field of vision spread from the floor to the ceiling and swept forward. Green light flowed everywhere I looked. There was just one unusual thing about it…

The water was flying along the mana’s currents at incredible speed, as freely as the mana itself. Somehow, Ulrike had noticed my surprise beneath my expressionless face, and he looked rather pleased with himself.

“This way, I can—cough, cough…!—lay water over the mana as it surges out. Hoo… Doesn’t it look just like I’m using water as my Special Ability?!”

“That’s impressive.”

I answered as I ran forward, before the flames pouring out of a room could engulf the corridor.

“I developed it during our training at Mimesis this time! They kept making me fall into streams, you know.”

“Haha… Who would…”

When I thought of the two people on our team who were ‘unexpectedly fond of seeking out fun,’ one of them was Narke. But he hadn’t gone to Mimesis because the government kept summoning him. That left only one person. I was pretty sure I knew who it was without even hearing the answer. As I pushed back the flames flying in every direction, their branches spreading out like vitriol, I said, “The problem is… my output is fine, but the hose can’t keep up!”

The smoke was irritating his throat, and his normally clear voice was growing badly hoarse. The barrier he had wrapped around his head like a helmet wasn’t enough to protect him. Apparently deciding that he couldn’t keep going like this, Ulrike shouted, drew his wand, and slammed it downward. The wand transformed into a long, slender sword. It was a one-handed sword, one I rarely saw.

— Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone.

BOOM—!

Ulrike hooked the potion hose he’d been holding in his mouth onto the belt strapped across his chest, then charged into the flames alongside me and thrust his sword forward. Every time he swung his sword while holding the fire hose in one hand, a chilling crack of impact rang out—one that water alone could never produce. His mana swiftly crushed the flames. It was a good strategy. Since he was dealing with the fire at close range, he could easily see whether anyone was nearby, so there was nothing to make him hesitate.

— He slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead—

Whoosh—! BANG—!

— You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains.

Before the flames he’d suppressed could flare up again, I thrust out my wand and spoke. The mana settling over the fire hardened like a solid mass. Ulrike winked at me in the middle of it all. I wanted to tell him to focus, but held back. He was skilled enough at devising his own strategies without being told, and he already seemed to be succeeding. His specialty was coming up with strategies that brought him to his absolute best, so I didn’t want to say even that small thing to him. I continued to back him up, supporting the path he was carving out.

For a brief moment, Ulrike stopped drinking the potion, and his complexion grew noticeably darker. At this rate, it wasn’t hard to understand why Narke was struggling so much. Ulrike coughed, then shouted in a metallic, rasping voice.

— The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground!

BOOOM—!

His strike against the flames blew a gaping hole through the center of the fire pit that had settled in front of us. I swept my wand without an incantation, then took the potion hose he’d hung from his clothes into my mouth and said, “Let’s switch. Thanks to you, I have a good idea of what to do now. I’ll handle the parts that require incantations. I’m not as skilled with a sword as you are, so I’ll use my wand, but you can keep using your sword.”

If I took the lead, Ulrike would surely wonder why I was still in such good shape. But if I left everything to Narke and Ulrike as things stood, it wouldn’t be long before two of the three of us were corpses by the time we got out. I didn’t even want to imagine it. My insides ached in more ways than one. Even so, no matter how little I could explain to Ulrike, the things I wanted to keep hidden couldn’t take precedence over our lives.

And—

“Don’t think it’s strange if I start talking from now on. Just keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

“Hmm?”

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty— I chanted the spell and continued speaking without pause. The heat struck my face, making my lungs sting.

“We can’t afford to think we’re safe just because we’re putting out this fire. Luise, you’ve read all the notes I gave you, right?”

He just nodded, too busy sucking down the potion.

“As I see it, the smelting furnace isn’t the most ideal target for their plan. From here on, we need to find the next one. I’m going to speak with the person you delivered the artifact to, Luise.”

Ulrike thought for a moment, then nodded, raising one eyebrow. When I moved a step ahead, he leaned forward and kept close to my right side. Every now and then, Narke raised his staff toward the sky and sent a violent gale of divine power straight down from above.

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge— Continuing the incantation, I tapped my artifact. I’d temporarily paused the communication earlier, but now whatever I said would be transmitted again. Perhaps she’d been waiting the whole time, because Sophia Nussbaum’s tense voice soon came through.

— [Are you back now?]

“Yes.”

His faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. I swung my wand as I recited the incantation. My lungs felt as though they were burning so badly that I couldn’t understand how Ulrike managed to keep his composure while running through the flames. My throat and even the words of my incantation stung. Perhaps the sound of me using magic had startled Sophia, because she remained silent for a while before asking cautiously.

— [I have been meaning to ask you this for a while, but… is there a fire right now?]

“That is right.”

I continued while Sophia let out a brief, involuntary breath of surprise.

“…It is difficult to say this to someone I have known for barely a week, but…”

— [Yes.]

“I consider this a joint operation. I am working together with my colleagues, and I want to work together with you as well. Will you agree to help me?”

— [If your head is set on a righteous purpose, I have no reason to refuse.]

“Then, in your eyes, does it seem that way?”

— [I don’t know, but I want to believe you. After all, I want the friend I have only just begun to get close to to be someone I can like, too.]

Sophia said this with a hesitant hum. You will not fear the terror of night— I continued the incantation and spoke over the sound of explosions.

“First, let me explain the situation. A fire broke out at a smelting furnace, and we’ve entered the houses in front of it to put out the flames that spread there. This isn’t a natural fire. It drains and destroys something unknown in anyone who approaches it. We can barely make our way through the flames without resorting to unnatural measures.”

Another brief silence followed. It would be difficult to accept. I would have felt the same way in her place.

— [That smelting furnace just now. Was that part of someone’s plan, too?]

“I can’t tell whether it was planned from the start or an outcome that happened to deviate from the original plan, but I think it’s safer to assume it was intentional.”

— [And it wasn’t Pleroma’s plan? It looks like something Atropos would do…]

Naturally, I didn’t answer that it was Terminus Eukairia’s doing. There were several reasons, but giving her too much information when she had no means of countering it with magic felt like pushing her toward a fate she would struggle to bear. I would have to tell her if Sophia decided to grow closer to me and I felt I could do so without putting her in danger. But when would that ever happen…?

I recited an incantation through my dust-choked mouth. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. Divine power followed directly on the heels of mana, sweeping over it.

— [The smelting furnace is owned by the family of the Free Conservative Party’s leader.]

The Free Conservative Party had been founded by conservatives who had left the Conservative Party. Judging by the values and ideology they professed, it was a party that lived up to its name in just how conservative it was. It had no aristocratic members and primarily represented bourgeois interests, with its members particularly eager to secure colonies.

“You know quite a lot.”

She didn’t respond. The silence continued, but for a very different reason from my own. I wasn’t displeased, though I felt I should be careful not to touch on anything that might trouble her.

Sweat trickled down my skin. The sound of people’s voices—and, above all, the welcome presence of Ulrike—had completely washed away the fear I’d felt earlier. Narke’s presence beside me had also helped me hold on, but right now, Ulrike’s arrival in full battle gear, boldly declaring that he had promised he would come, seemed to give me more strength than anything else.

— [Unfortunately, every factory in Berlin is connected to conservative interests in one way or another. If you were hoping to find one that wasn’t, there isn’t one. Any factory in Berlin would be an effective target if the goal is to attack the Social Democratic Party. In that case, I wonder whether there’s any reason to attack somewhere other than a factory if the aim is to discredit the Social Democrats.]

“Hmm.”

It was a reasonable point, one that hardly needed a response. Sophia Nussbaum continued.

— [That said, this is how I see it. We should consider the aristocracy’s perspective as well as the bourgeoisie’s. If they intend to divide the population, it might be worth considering both sides. I know of a few people and places where these unknown individuals might cause trouble. That’s only based on things I’ve overheard, so I can’t claim to know them well. So, if I tell you about places that could stir up the bourgeoisie, you can fill in the gaps.]

KRA-BOOM—!

A deafening explosion, and the last of the flames on the third floor was extinguished. Even though I could still hold on, Ulrike didn’t know that. He grabbed me and shoved me forcefully backward. Narke caught me and placed his hand over my eyes. The divine power touched my stinging eyes, restoring my peace of mind. As I wiped away the tears that had reflexively welled up from the smoke while I charged forward, I thought.

All right. Sophia was telling me to find places that would set the nobility into an uproar and compare them against the locations she’d mentioned. She had suggested looking for the overlap among those places, but I was already prepared to do the opposite. I knew the kinds of places where an incident would provoke a strong reaction from the nobility—and among those, the places that could sway the bourgeoisie as well. Perhaps even the workers.

It could be anywhere. Let’s start narrow and choose an incident site that would affect only the nobility. First, nobles’ homes, clubs, salons… Let’s group them all together. This category has two sides to it. Targeting a single noble or a group of his acquaintances would certainly be effective in raising the alarm among the nobility and uniting them. But the impact would be less than if a large number of them were taken out at once.

However, if France wasn’t confident of a complete victory with this operation and was just trying not to let an opportunity slip away, then this would be a low-cost, high-efficiency option. It would minimize the risk while leaving a definite impression. In other words, it would be ridiculous to call something like this restrained, but it could clearly serve as a relatively restrained declaration of war. What could come next to make this count as a restrained declaration of war?

Next, what came to mind was a ‘group’ with a greater reach than a salon. Did that mean I was dismissing the political influence of salons? No. I meant that there was a better way to unite citizens from every social class under an intensely heightened anti-Pleroma sentiment.

Students.

— […That’s as far as Pankow goes. Let’s move on to Spandau. There are a lot of defense contractors there. As you know, there’s also a factory that produces military artifacts. I can’t remember the owner’s name, but they’re a truly chilling… I’m sorry about that.]

Spandau. Defense contractors. The moment I heard that, another thought followed. Spandau’s industrial districts were tightly secured, and they also served as training grounds for mages.

For example, there was a shared training ground for all the teams of the Imperial Second Academy Student Military Corps. I felt the muscles in the back of my neck stiffen, but I answered calmly. Then I swung my wand from behind Ulrike.

“Why apologize?”

— [They don’t have any children yet, but they’re doing everything in their power to ensure that the child they have someday will have a New Human body. You can picture the kind of person they are, can’t you? They’re extremely hostile toward socialism. Their mind is already that of an aristocrat, so they don’t even like the Conservative Party, despite its support for liberalism.]

“What a nightmare.”

It had been a century since so many aristocrats and members of royal families had begun emphasizing the importance of liberalism. Whether they truly believed in it or not, they would at least pay lip service to it to win support.

As someone from a formerly colonized country and a citizen living under neoliberalism, I knew there were definitely people in this world who went to extraordinary lengths to become part of the very class that exploited them. But it still gave me a headache. It made me feel suffocated. Especially because I knew we couldn’t simply fast-forward through history and move ourselves into another era, nor could we expect to find a utopia even if we did.

Sophia gave a quiet, amused snort before asking in a low voice.

— [Aren’t you an aristocrat yourself? ]

“You’ve already told me everything there is to tell, I see.”

I frowned and coughed. My voice was growing increasingly ragged, too. I answered a little playfully because I wanted to get along with her, but Sophia’s voice turned serious.

— [I want to laugh, but I can’t. I can’t even bring myself to sit down right now. Please tell me you’ll make it out of there alive. Even if we haven’t known each other for long, I don’t want to hear about someone I was just talking to burning to death.]

“You’re very kind.”

— [Thank you, but I don’t think anyone wants to watch someone die right beside them.]

“I like you. How about I bring you a bottle of wine to celebrate our first successful joint operation, sometime soon?”

— [I don’t drink.]

“Ah. Sorry.”

I answered as I rested a hand on Narke’s shoulder. A moment later, Sophia spoke again.

— [If you said you were coming today, I’d gladly go out to meet you.]

I smiled. I wanted to laugh out loud, but opening my mouth had become too difficult, so after a brief pause, I tapped the artifact once. Then I briefly cast a rounded barrier over my face and spoke to Narke.

“Narke, could you pass this on to the Headquarters? The military artifact factory in Spandau and the nearby… Imperial Second Academy Student Military Corps training ground. Tell them the fire will spread there…”

Narke looked into my eyes and raised an eyebrow slightly before slowly narrowing his eyes. For a brief moment, an inexplicable emotion glimmered in his eyes, and I hesitated. But it vanished just as quickly, as though it had never been there.

Good. Narke understood what I meant. He would know how to pass the message along properly.

We made our way up to the next floor with Ulrike, who had dealt with the flames coming down the stairs. Only the fourth and fifth floors remained. Now that we’d put out the immediate danger, we needed to gradually pass along the next target to our allies. There was still one more person we needed to find.

I called out to Ulrike just as he was about to rush ahead. Thanks to Narke using his divine power to bring in clean air, we could at least breathe a little more easily from time to time.

“Luise.”

“Hmm?”

Ulrike nodded, the hose still in his mouth. Even now, at the very last moment, I wondered if it was really right to bring him along. But…

“Do you remember? Stadelheim Prison. The place we went to.”

The moment I said it, the color drained from Ulrike’s face. His lips pressed into a tight line, and his brows instinctively drew together. I knew what he was imagining. I cleared my throat and continued.

“I have to do that again.”

Ulrike’s mouth fell open in shock. He knew I intended to bring everyone out before bringing the building down. And he thought I was going to enter another place I wouldn’t be able to escape from. No, he was wrong. I had no intention of going that far. The only thing I knew for certain right now was that I had to try first.

Ulrike wore a complicated expression I couldn’t quite read, then closed his mouth again. I expected him to try to talk me out of it gently, but his expression soon settled back into composure. He surveyed the state of the fourth floor, then nodded toward the fire.

“If it’s something you have to do, then it’s not just your job. It’s ours. You know that.”