Baccano! - Volume 11 - Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

THE WORLD’S END

Evening The Third Library Private collection

Turn back the clock slightly.

Today, Huey had attended the full day of lectures without trouble, and he’d spent the time absorbed in a book of his own, just like always. Everything about the situation was perfectly normal, including the glances Monica kept stealing at him.

The absence of Elmer, the class’s new member, was also patently normal.

“All right, well, that’s it for today’s lecture! I ran a little late, but tomorrow’s a school holiday, at least… Hmm? Come to think of it, Elmer isn’t here today. Maybe he caught a cold?”

Finally, after the lecture had ended, Renee noticed that Elmer was missing.

All the same, she handled it with no more concern than she had for anything else.

Even if someone died, I bet she’d tell us about it just like this.

Although he sensed something monstrous in the depths of this lady professor, Huey knew it didn’t matter much, and he immersed himself in his book again for a while.

After about ten minutes had passed, the room had grown quiet and empty, and the only sound came from the turning pages of Huey’s book.

Then he sensed someone coming up behind him.

He didn’t even need to bother seeing who it was. “What?” he asked, without lifting his eyes from the book.

“Elmer didn’t come today.”

As Huey had predicted, the slightly sad voice belonged to Monica.

Apparently, Monica noticed that he’d known it was her, and this gave her the illusion that Huey had begun to think of her as someone special.

Ordinarily, Monica would have flushed bright red at this, but Huey realized her voice was lower than it had been at any point during the past few days. He slowly turned around.

“…Well, he did fall into the sea. He probably did catch a cold. Mine’s almost better, but maybe he caught it from me.”

“D-do you think so…?” She faltered. Her voice was a little strange.

Sensing that something wasn’t right, Huey decided to keep her company, just for a little while.

“And? What is it? Did you want me to go pay him a get-well visit with you this time? I’ve told you dozens of times already—I don’t like him. So I won’t go on any sympathy visits.”

“…Do you suppose it really is a cold?”

“Huh?”

Monica’s phrasing did seem odd.

“What are you getting at?”

Dammit, it’s not like me to care about things like this.

He was frustrated with himself for fostering this connection to the world, but he kept it all locked inside and turned to face Monica.

When she saw Huey stand up and close his book, she seemed to be making a decision of her own.

Her eyes filling with tears, she slowly told him, “I…I saw it, last night…”

“Saw what?”

“…I think…it was…the Mask Maker.”

One hour later The market

At this hour, the western sky still glowed with a faint reddish light, and stars were beginning to glitter overhead.

As Huey and Monica walked through the market, where most of the shops had already closed, they quietly kept a wary eye on their surroundings.

“So you really did see it?”

“Yes… And I… I’d heard that rumor yesterday, so… I’m scared. I’m so scared…”

She might have been remembering the previous night. Monica hugged herself tightly, and she was trembling hard.

Watching her, Huey recalled the rumor.

He hadn’t known about it the other day, when they met Niki, but her claim that she would die soon had bothered him. When he did a little digging, he’d learned that a certain rumor was spreading among the townspeople.

They said anyone who saw the Mask Maker was killed by it soon afterward.

And—apparently, that report was true.

As much as I’d like to call it ridiculous, I suppose I can’t.

If all you knew was the story, it sounded like an absurd folktale.

In the future, people who heard about this would probably doubt any murders had even taken place, but they were happening, here and now. That was an incontrovertible fact.

“In any case, I’ll walk you home today.”

It didn’t actually matter whether Monica died or not, but Huey was intrigued by her claim that she’d seen the Mask Maker, and for the first time, he went to the patisserie where she lived.

Aside from Monica’s incident, the day had been a peaceful one.

Even if something did happen, it probably wouldn’t happen today, Huey thought absently as he made his way through the streets without much caution.

However, there were things he hadn’t noticed. Strange things were already happening.

There were more city police out and about than usual.

The aristocratic thugs were nowhere to be seen.

And—his entire alchemy class seemed to have vanished.

“Um, so, this is the patisserie where I live!”

“Mm-hmm…”

After making their way through the market for a little while, they emerged in front of a stone building that was a bit larger than the rest. The sweet aroma of baked pastries wafted all the way out to the street, whetting the appetites of the passersby.

“U-um, thank you very much! I’ll go ask the owner if she’ll bake something for me to give you, as a proper thank-you!” she said innocently. She seemed to be gradually returning to her normal self.

Was her story about seeing the Mask Maker just an excuse to lure him to her house?

Just as Huey started having suspicions—

—the first disaster struck.

“Auntie! I’m ho—”

Calling in a clear, cheerful voice, Monica opened the door—

—and a middle-aged woman cut her off with a shout.

“No! You mustn’t come in!”

“Huh…?”

Monica froze at the sudden yell from the shop’s mistress. The woman’s face was distorted with emotion.

“Monica, get away from here! Hurry!”

“Auntie?!”

“?”

As Monica and Huey watched, confused, men in black uniforms restrained the proprietor.

Another shadow closed in on them from behind—

“This is the police,” said a flat voice.

“Monica Campanella, and… Are you a student at the same school? We’d like you to come in and answer a few questions for us, if you would.”

“What are we suspected of?” Huey asked. Monica looked dazed, but he remained perfectly calm and chose his words so as not to anger the other man.

This was probably connected to that other incident a few days earlier.

Remembering his time in the jailhouse, Huey thought it was probably best to do as they were told, but—

—the city police were very nearly a band of vigilantes, and this member slipped and made a careless comment in front of the suspects.

As a result, Huey and Monica were dragged into a night straight out of hell.

“We received a report that the students at your school compose the Mask Maker gang. If you don’t want to get hurt, come along quietly.”

The Third Library The courtyard

“You’re Mr. Dalton, aren’t you? …Beg pardon, sir, but we’d like you to come with us.”

In front of the big tree in the library courtyard…

…an old man was looking up into the thick green foliage when three men in city police uniforms spoke to him from behind.

“…Is that an order from Larolf?” Dalton murmured, still looking up at the tree, and the men behind him wordlessly sidled closer. “Hmm… I don’t know whether this is about the Mask Maker, the drug, or the false gold, but— You mean to pin the crime on us, then wrest power from the House of Boroñal, which has ties to this library, hmm? Was it that new chief’s idea? Or is someone else pulling the strings?” Dalton asked impassively.

“…”

The officers didn’t respond. However, without looking the slightest bit anxious, the old man continued. “Oh, you don’t really have to answer that. The one thing that concerns me is whether this tree is due for a pruning. You see how that branch over there is broken? …Or was someone climbing it? What do you think?”

“…”

“If you can’t tell me that, I have no use for you. What do you think, Renee?”

“Well, let’s see.”

“?!”

When the police officers turned toward the sudden, easygoing voice—they saw a bespectacled woman with a beautiful figure. She was wearing loose clothes, but even then, her voluptuous curves were clear to see.

“Um. Thinking about it seems like work, so why don’t we just rip it out by the roots?”

“I was a fool to ask you.”

Sighing, Dalton turned around and glared coldly at the officers for the first time. “What, still here?”

“…A-are you mocking us?!”

Even as they sensed something eerie in the other man’s response, the police moved to arrest him, fists trembling, but—

—in the next instant, something silver flashed through the air.

They heard a soft, muted thud—and behind them, a small dagger had appeared in Renee’s neck. The dagger slipped free of the wound, and a great gout of blood spurted out to dye the officers red.

“Eep?!”

“Wh-why, you! What have you done?!”

“Aaaaaaaaaugh!!”

The three officers panicked in three different ways, but in the next moment—they froze.

They’d realized the shower of hot, red liquid was now squirming against the law of gravity.

“Heh?”

Slowly and stickily, the spattered blood crawled over them like a colony of ants coated in oil. As if it had a will of its own, it crept over Renee’s sensuous figure and up her body, then finally slipped into the wound on her neck.

The sight was both oddly satisfying and uncanny. The woman gently rubbed at the wound, then took her hand away to reveal unmarred, perfectly healed skin.

“Owww…,” she protested. “Th-that was mean, Headmaster!! What was that for?!”

“Muh…mon…monster…?”

Glancing back and forth between their own spotless selves and Renee, the police officers backed up a step in terror.

They bumped into Dalton, and a weighty voice resounded from behind them.

“You never came here; do you understand?”

“…”

Dalton spoke calmly to the speechless police officers, who had witnessed something very like magic. His voice held the gravity of a dignified priest.

“Will you denounce her as a witch? Witch trials are rather out of fashion these days, and the church has almost no power in this town, and at the will of the people, no less. Now then, given these facts, I will say it once more. Only once.”

Or possibly like a demon who saw through everything.

“You never came here… Do you understand?”

Near the port A back alley

They ran and ran and ran.

Fleeing with a girl in tow was a literary trope from time immemorial, but it wasn’t one that Huey wanted to experience personally.

Fleeing.

It was the first time he’d ever thought about the meaning of the word this seriously.

To Huey, the world was something to be hated and loathed, but this was the first time he had feared it since the witch hunters took his mother away.

Dammit. What is all this anyway?

When several police officers had surrounded them in front of the patisserie, Huey had sensed something like a storm coming. The smell of danger about it was different from the time they’d saved that girl, Niki, a few days earlier.

When he saw Monica standing there, stunned—he’d shoved the officer in front of them out of the way, grabbed her hand, and started running.

Rrgh, this isn’t like me.

Really, he should have left Monica behind and made his escape…so why had he taken her hand himself?

Well, if it comes down to it, I can use her as a decoy, at least.

Making excuses to himself, Huey hurried forward through the dark.

Ignoring the voices of the officers that were closing in on them from the rear, he cut between two houses, darting from one alley into another.

Run. Run. Run.

In Monica’s presence, the police officers had definitely said “the students at your school.”

So they think there are multiple Mask Makers?

That made sense. When you put together all the rumors so far, considering the Mask Maker’s methods and the scarcity of eyewitness testimony, it was understandable that someone would begin to guess there were multiple perpetrators.

But why would they focus on us?

He was under suspicion, along with his entire school. This was clearly more dangerous than the last time he’d been arrested. He could sense from the officers’ behavior that this time, they might not ever be released. Not alive anyway.

…Is it the drug?

“Hu…Huey! Where are— Where are we running to?!” Monica called out as she ran, sounding as if she was on the verge of tears.

“No idea!” Huey answered her curtly. The uncomfortable, clammy sweat breaking out across his skin was making his pulse speed up and his thoughts race.

Dammit, how many months has it been since I ran at full tilt? …How many years?

The moonlight didn’t make it into the narrow alley, and the darkness amplified the pressure bearing down on his back.

But it wasn’t as if Huey had no destination in mind.

Initially, he’d thought of the library and the port storehouse, but under the circumstances, it seemed safe to assume that both would be compromised. Huey had considered just running around town as well, but there were too many police officers out on the streets. As they caught the other students, more officers would be free to come after them. He had to vanish completely before then.

But if so, Monica posed a problem.

Is it all right to take her there?

Huey glanced over at the girl running beside him, and he thought for a while.

She’s surprisingly strong. Maybe stronger than I am.

She was matching his pace well. Huey wondered whether he lacked stamina, or if she was just in good shape.

Does working at a patisserie involve that much physical labor? No, that question can wait.

For some reason…she does seem to like me. Blindly, at that.

In that case, if I take her there—can she keep a secret?

Can I make full use of this girl?

He never stopped running as he considered his options, and when they left the alley, he realized they’d come out in the usual square.

Good—I don’t see any police.

Huey looked around and felt a moment of relief. But when he scanned the square again, calmer this time, he stiffened.

Beside him, Monica could see what he was seeing, too, and he could hear the fear and tension in her breath. “Wh-what… What is this?”

…I see. Apparently, the police aren’t the only ones out in force.

What they saw were—

—not the police or the aristocrats, but ordinary townspeople on high alert, openly carrying clubs and tools, hoes and shovels and daggers—anything that could be used as a weapon.

One in five held torches, brightly illuminating the darkened streets.

Huey and Monica recognized every single person.

The generous bakery owner was there.

The elderly lantern maker was there.

The lady miller was there.

The old astrologist held a torch.

The young general store proprietor held a lantern.

The stonecutter held an enormous saw.

A familiar bald man was dragging a hammer.

The butcher brought a gleaming meat cleaver.

Sailors gripped rough clubs.

The old woman who’d once slipped Huey an extra fruit clenched a pot in both hands—

I’m not surprised no one seems to have guns or swords. If they brought out real weapons, the aristocrats would assume it was a revolt and run to Naples for shelter.

As a matter of fact, during this era on the Italian Peninsula, multiple rebellions against Spain had broken out due to repeated spells of poverty and tyranny. However, most of these had been quelled, and considering the population of this town, they’d be suppressed in no time if the viceroy’s army in Naples took action.

And there was no poverty here anyway. The town had no reason to revolt.

Then…does this mean all these people are looking for those of us with ties to the alchemists?

“No… What is…this…? What’s…going on…?”

Beside him, Monica was shaking.

“…Calm down, Monica.”

Huey was trying to mentally process the circumstances, when—

“Hey, you. What are you doing? You’re not with that Third Library lot, are you?”

—a man holding a torch had noticed them and was on his way over.

“Ah…”

Noticing Monica was about to scream, Huey rapidly improvised. “Uh, no? We were just watching and feeling sorry for you plebs working this late. I paid good money for this girl, but you and your torches killed the mood.”

“…A gentleman from the Rotten Eggs, are you, sir? We don’t have time to entertain you two right now… Well, this will benefit the both of us. Help us out, would you?”

With that, the man walked off.

Huey’s quick thinking and successful performance as a noble had gotten them through the predicament. He quietly tugged on Monica’s hand, retreating into the depths of the alley.

“H-Huey, what…? What’s going on? What is this?” Monica was murmuring in a small voice.

Taking her even deeper into the alley, he pulled her around the side of a stack of supplies beside a workshop.

So the whole town is our enemy?

…What about the aristocrats? No, I suppose it would be the same either way.

Huey was keeping an incredibly cool head as he analyzed the situation, abnormal as it was.

Monica watched him dubiously, and then— Abruptly, he turned to face the girl and asked her a question, eyes serious.

“Monica, there’s something I want to ask you.”

“Wh-what is it?”

“Hypothetically… Just for example…”

Huey took a long breath and chose his words carefully.

“If I told you…I was the Mask Maker…what would you do?”

Somewhere in the city

They had bound Niki’s hands and dragged her somewhere she didn’t recognize at all.

It was spacious, but it felt cramped between the wooden walls. Dry woodgrain showed on the floor and ceiling as well. A faintly sweet smell hung in the air, and light fell across several tables and laboratory instruments.

And several adults stood around her.

All of them, beginning with police chief Larolf, were familiar to Niki.

She didn’t see her bald master, but the others were all people she’d encountered at the market.

They’d passed one another every morning and nodded in greeting; that was the extent of their relationship. Actually, Niki had nodded to them, but they’d never spoken to her or returned the greeting. They’d looked at her like a pebble by the roadside—no, they’d never looked at her at all. To them, she was something to pick up and throw if the circumstances called for it. Less than a tool.

Of course, Niki didn’t know their names, either.

She’d even tried to forget the bald man’s name, too.

The only names inside her now belonged to individuals who’d treated her like a person: Elmer, Esperanza, and that man Aile.

All the other names were part of the world that rejected her, and the embodiment of the world she wanted to deny.

Those nameless adults were looking down on her with undisguised scorn. Their expressions contained a combination of anger and anxiety as they spoke.

“How much? How much did you tell that lecher of a noble?”

Her gag had been removed, but she didn’t scream. She knew if she screamed for them to spare her, they wouldn’t listen—and she knew even better that no one her voice could reach would save her.

“…I didn’t…tell him anything.”

“Oh, you didn’t, did you? Well, either way, you created cause for suspicion, and that makes you guilty enough,” said the whiskered man who seemed to be the leader. He grabbed the front of Niki’s shirt. “Remember your place, little wench. Did you start to have dreams? Did you really think an aristocrat would take you in? That you’d be treated like a human?”

“…”

Dangling a small leather pouch from his free hand, he spat as if he were speaking to a horse or an ox:

“You and your kind are just tools for selling this. Nothing more. Don’t forget that.”

In an alley

“If you… If you were the Mask Maker? Wh-what do you mean…?”

“Just for example. If I was…what would you do?”

Monica froze up for a little while at Huey’s unexpected question. “Oh, c-come on, Huey. I-in that case, what if it was the other way around? What if I told you I was the Mask Maker? What would you do?”

“Nothing. Whatever you are, it makes no difference to me.”

“I-it doesn’t make a difference. I see…”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I did say I didn’t like you or anyone else, but I also know that now isn’t the time to bring that up again. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.”

As Huey apologized calmly, his eyes were serious, and Monica realized he meant what he was saying.

“Huey…”

“This is all hypothetical. No matter what answer you give me, I don’t intend to harm you. If I was the Mask Maker, what would you think? That’s all I want to know.”

It wasn’t clear whether she was even processing what he was saying. She was quiet for a while, her eyes darting around in circles.

A hopelessly frigid silence fell between the two of them, as though it might go on forever—until she suddenly raised her head and spoke in a hoarse, choked voice.

“E-even then…Huey…I’d…”

Her voice held a kind of strength, and Huey fell silent for a few moments.

Then he quietly gazed into Monica’s face—and murmured something he knew.

Something small and true.

“In a sense, I really have been wearing a mask.”

It wasn’t a lie, but he did have an ulterior motive—to manipulate her.

“But I’m not the Mask Maker, or a murderer.

“I’m sure…there’s another Mask Maker.”

Niki stared rather absently at the pouch in the whiskered man’s hand.

Damn that drug.

It was all for that drug… Because of it, we were…

Even though…they said…it would make people happy.

Why? Why did even that drug…kill us?

As if she were gazing at a distant landscape, Niki’s hollow eyes stayed fixed on the leather pouch.

At the same time, she felt the heavy, sticky aura of violence in the room growing more intense, and she stifled her sigh in her throat and reflected on her past.

On a life that had meant nothing to her or to anyone else.

Niki knew her name had been given to her by her real parents.

But that was all she knew.

Where were her parents now, and what were they doing? Were they alive or dead? She didn’t even know that. She had wanted to find out, on occasion, but at this point she had no way to check.

She had been sold to this town, as an object.

Technically, you could have called her a slave. During the Middle Ages, many European cities had acquired immense wealth by capturing Slavs and similar people and trading them as slaves. That wealth had been handed down to the eighteenth century they lived in now—although currently, the bulk of the slave trade consisted of the mass transport of enslaved Africans from their continent to the Americas.

However, this town was an exception: It needed people who weren’t supposed to exist.

Agriculture in this town wasn’t all that prosperous, and there were no obvious slaves to be seen. Instead, Lotto Valentino had boys and girls like Niki.

To them, the town’s commoners—the “parents” who raised them—were merely people who provided them with food and a bed.

To Niki, that had been all right at first.

After all, before she’d been bought by this town, her treatment had been much worse.

The work had been hard labor for children—but after their work was done, they were given food and a place to sleep, and it was a life they could be satisfied with.

When they worked, they were surrounded by dazzling light.

They’d melted various metals in a furnace, then processed them in a special workshop.

That job that been drummed into the children ever since they were purchased by the town several years earlier.

They inhaled smoke from unknown chemicals and choked on a daily basis, and some of them died from severe burns. Even so, she and the others had silently continued working.

The metal they worked appeared to be gold, but that didn’t matter to them. Even if they took sacks of it and escaped, they would have nowhere to go.

And so they worked frantically to secure a place for themselves.

Even though they couldn’t see what lay ahead in their lives, they believed that, someday, they would find hope.

However, in order to close the eyes of these children, these commodities, the town of Lotto Valentino underwent a new transformation.

In addition to the workshop where they were forced to make the “gold-like substance”—

—one day, Niki and the others were taken to another workshop.

This facility, which had been built below the town market, existed to manufacture a peculiar drug.

Slowly and steadily and far more easily than burns, the substance created there ate away at people like Niki.

As she remembered the past, the girl spoke quietly.

“They all…went mad.”

At her sudden murmur, the adults in the room looked at one another.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“We only…wanted to live. That’s all, and yet… And yet it killed us from the inside.”

The girl’s eyes were vacant. Her lips began to move faster and faster as her despair slowly turned to anger.

“My black-haired friend kept breathing in the smoke from when we made that drug, and he went mad without ever feeling that something was wrong; ‘I’ll be “it” next!’ he yelled, and then he jumped into the ocean, and he never came back up! Nobody knew what he meant! The curly-haired girl gradually stopped smiling or getting angry, and all she did every day was mutter her own name! And then, one day her heart just stopped! She was fine before! The others, too—bit by bit, everyone went mad! We were dying! And you bastards even broke the ones who were okay!”

The substance they had been forced to manufacture was most definitely a drug, one that was far too powerful and brutal for this age.

The townspeople sold this highly addictive drug to some of the nobles and influential merchants, and in exchange, they had these powerful figures dancing in the palms of their hands. Not only was the drug intensely addictive, its effects were many times more pleasurable than the other substances in circulation, and it was more than enough to bind people who held authority.

They’d narrowed their targets to aristocrats, traders, and other powerful people who seemed likely to dabble in drugs, then created a system where the aristocrats and traders purchased Niki and the others—ostensibly for sex—and the children visited their mansions, taking the substance with them.

The children were purchased as young male and female prostitutes by nobles and merchant sailors. The townspeople didn’t care whether anything was actually done to them at their destinations. The important thing was the transactions that occurred behind closed doors at the mansions.

In the unlikely event that these shady transactions were discovered by an authority who didn’t approve, they would push all the responsibility onto the “children who didn’t really exist” and sever all ties to them. If the whole town worked together, the story would hold.

In the midst of all this, Niki had watched her companions—children who were in the same situation as she was—break, one after another.

“I’m sure I’m already mad as well. I can’t escape that drug! And so— And so, I stopped being afraid of death. I stopped hoping for anything in life! I hated the world far, far more than I had when that slave dealer was dragging me around! And so we’re mad—I know! We’re just as crazy as the ones who died!”

She seemed to be screaming the words at herself. For just a moment, the adults flinched—but the bearded man holding Niki’s shirt soon flew into a rage and slammed her up against the wall.

There was a dull thud as her back and head hit the wood, and Niki moaned.

As if to drown out her groans and shouted accusations, the bearded commoner said:

“Is that why?

“You’re telling us you went crazy, and that’s why you little rats made up that Mask Maker murderer?”

The Third Library

“Um, so what do that drug and the false gold have to do with the Mask Maker serial murders?” Renee asked the headmaster innocently, tottering along with several books in her arms.

After the police officers had fled, Dalton had suggested, “Let’s go elsewhere before they return with reinforcements, shall we?” and they’d decided to hide in a secret room under the private collection for a while.

On the way over, Dalton stopped at the main building, brought out several carrier pigeons, and released them into the sky with a message to some unknown destination.

Then, once they were on the move again, Renee had asked her question.

“Hmm…” Dalton stroked his chin with his prosthetic hand for a while in thought. Then he sighed briefly. “Of the Mask Maker’s victims, half appear to have been townspeople who had important roles in directing the operation. The other half were witnesses to the Mask Maker. All of those were children who were bought by the town.”

“? What does that mean?”

“In a way, the Mask Maker is a mask put on the ‘children who don’t exist.’ Those were at once suicides by nonexistent people, murders—

“—and denunciations.”

“You rats… You were secretly working together, weren’t you? At first, we didn’t realize who all the witnesses were. After all, talking about the Mask Maker was taboo, even among us.”

As the bearded man spat, he shoved Niki harder against the wall. He was shaking with rage and anxiety.

Larolf, who had been leaning against the wall in a corner of the room, spoke next.

“I did a little investigating after I saw you at Esperanza’s, and it turned out you’d had a previous run-in with some of my men. It sounds as though some students from the Library saved you…and I suppose that’s when you established your connection with Esperanza. And that created a whole chain of problems.”

“…?”

Niki didn’t understand what he was saying. They weren’t the ones who’d put her in touch with Esperanza; she’d met Elmer later, and he was the one who had taken her to him.

However, she didn’t have time to think about what might have given him the wrong idea.

The pressure around her neck was making it harder and harder to breathe. She struggled and shook off the man’s hand, but both of her own hands were tied, and she ended up collapsing to the floor.

Lightly setting a foot on the fallen girl’s leg, Chief Larolf quietly went on.

“In any case, your plan ends here.”

“Ngh…”

“Some of you killed us, while others became witnesses… Were you trying to alert someone who didn’t know what this town was like? Were you trying to tell others how you were being treated?! About the drug?! The false gold?! All of it, everything?”

The chief was getting riled up as he gradually brought more of his weight to bear on that foot. The heel of his shoe dug into Niki’s leg, and her face twisted with pain.

“What an appalling bunch you are. You don’t exist, and yet you play at giving your lives meaning by becoming witnesses. You even assume the mask of ‘victim’ to assert yourselves.”

The chief leaned even harder into his foot, and in contrast, his voice grew calmer again.

“Talk. Who else is acting as the Mask Maker, besides you? Oh, if you don’t want to say, you don’t have to. We’ll just get rid of you and all the other slaves. We’d hate to have to wait until the next slave trader comes through before we can deal in the drug and the false gold again, but that’s just how it is.”

“…”

“The Mask Maker will take the blame in all those cases as well. It’s an honor, isn’t it? The name of the Mask Maker you wished for will be talked about for quite a while… Only in this town, mind you, but still.”

The chief took his foot off Niki for a moment.

“Since I’m the chief of police now, I can shut up the newssheets. Come to think of it, the previous chief must have picked up on your signals. He tried to crack down on the drug, so the citizens cooked up a corruption case to bring him down. Thanks to that, I have the position now.”

……!

“Do you know why I’m telling you all this? It’s a little parting gift you can take with you to the afterlife… I’m about to kill you. I’m about to prove I will do anything for the people of this town.”

It was a casual performance for the influential citizens in the room.

However, part of what he’d said echoed faintly in Niki’s heart.

…Somebody did notice.

I don’t know much about the previous chief, but anyone’s fine.

…He noticed.

“What are you smiling about? …Disgusting thing.”

The girl was smiling with a hint of happiness, and the chief prepared to stomp down on her leg again, but—

—she didn’t even see him anymore as she slowly got to her feet. She sent an intense glare at the citizens who’d assembled there—and quietly smiled, and smiled, and smiled.

“I’ll tell you… Yes, I’ll tell you.”

Up until now, Niki had been frightened.

She understood the gravity of the acts she and the other children had committed, and yet she’d felt nothing about them and done nothing to stop them.

She’d been afraid that even after the deeds that had killed so many of her companions, no one had remembered them. Afraid to admit that it was meaningless, that they and their lives were meaningless.

“It’s true… We gave false testimonies about things we hadn’t seen. One or another of us would kill one of you, someone whose name we didn’t even know, and then commit suicide.”

For that very reason, although she had understood logically that she was prepared, another self deep in her heart had denied it.

At least it had until a few moments ago.

“I didn’t stop my friends from killing themselves. I thought it was the right thing to do.”

In this moment, as she made her confession, she cast away her fear.

The dying girl spoke to the creatures before her—people she couldn’t even see as human—and quietly willed herself to speak. Her voice was filled with laughter, anger, and every other emotion she felt.

“But…you’re wrong. There really is a Mask Maker.”

“Wh-what…?”

“Did you think we’d thought it up on our own? We basically weren’t allowed to meet or even talk to one another; how do you think we managed to come up with a common goal? You kept us down so we wouldn’t revolt. You were frightened, so you must know: We couldn’t have carried out the previous Mask Maker incidents on our own.”

They just wanted to protect their own peace of mind. The citizens, cowardly and self-indulgent, had acted with that modest wish in their hearts—and they were scared.

Something “alien” was standing in front of them.

They couldn’t think of her as a tool anymore, yet they couldn’t see her as a human being like themselves, either. A lone girl who had steeled herself stood there with an uncanny air of intimidation about her.

Facing the frozen adults, Niki bared the pure and terrible force of her emotions.

It was the first time she’d screamed that wasn’t in pain.

“I hope it kills you, too. See the Mask Maker and rot away, all of you, all of you! Fear! Repent!”

A child she might have been, but the people could tell she truly would have killed them if she could. A cold sweat began to run down their backs.

However, as if to dispel her malice, Larolf shook his head violently. Forcing a smile onto his face, he gave one brief retort.

“A mask, hmm? I don’t know whether that’s a bluff or the truth—but we know someone who wears a mask, too… Although I doubt that that individual is the Mask Maker.”

“…?”

“The one who first brought a lump of false gold to us—and instructed us to make it.”

“Still, the Mask Maker is in our school, hmm…?”

As they made their way through the private collection, Dalton’s face creased in amusement, and he stroked his beard.

“It’s true we do have a bit of an anomaly among us.”

“Um…? Who is it?”

“Huey Laforet. He’s your pupil, you know.”

“Ohhh! Yes, you’re right, he really is clever. Even when I’ve taught something wrong, when I ask him later, he remembers it the right way! He’s a genius.”

Don’t teach the material wrong in the first place.

The sarcastic reply almost left Dalton’s mouth, but any sermon he started seemed likely to run on for a while, so he let it pass without saying anything.

“Hmm. He certainly is a genius to rival Lebreau… No, I’d rather not apply such a tawdry word as genius to him. I’d rather not, but…he is still a little brat. Tawdry is enough for him. And so I’ll say it without reserve: The boy Huey is a hopeless fool who talks about wanting to destroy the world—

“—but he is unquestionably a genius.”

Five years ago A remote village in a certain country

The boy listened to his mother’s words.

Listening was all he was allowed to do, and it was the only thing the powerless boy could do.

“Lord Inquisitors… There is one thing I must confess.”

His mother’s soft smile made Huey’s chest tighten.

He had the feeling that he shouldn’t listen to any more of this.

But he had no choice. Vaguely, he knew:

These might be his mother’s last words.

They were the words of his mother, his kind, kind mother. Even so, the feeling that he must not listen to them bound his heart.

As it turned out—that feeling was half-right, and half-wrong.

“I saw…a terrible gathering, held in praise of demons.”

True, his mother’s words brought confusion and despair to the boy’s heart, but—

“It was horrible. I did not see the faces of those who participated in that gathering—but they seem to believe that I had. And so, I will make an accusation. I hereby denounce them.”

—it wouldn’t have mattered whether the boy heard them.

“Let the proof of my innocence be the proof of my testimony.

“This I charge, while I still have a voice in this world: All those who accused me, and who testified that I am a witch, are the wicked partakers of that sabbath.”

In that moment, he remembered, the atmosphere had changed.

At first, Huey hadn’t understood what his mother had said. But when he saw the faces of the villagers around him, he froze up completely.

Until that point, the villagers had worn the same kind smiles as his mother when they were with him, but now their eyes held an emotion he’d never seen before.

The next moment, the inquisitors conducting the trial smiled thinly.

“Very well. In the name of the Lord, we swear. If you are proved innocent—all who accused you of witchery will be deemed heretics, and like you, they will be interrogated and tried.”

As they made that declaration, Huey saw:

The fearful expressions of the villagers turned to despair.

In the end…only a handful of villagers, Huey included, returned home safely from the trial that day.

After an awful, old-fashioned trial, his mother was bound with chains and thrown into the lake.

“If she floats, she’s a witch. If she sinks, she’s innocent.”

Either way, death lay in store. The trial wasn’t even a lynching; it was murder.

However, his mother accepted it, stepped off the precipice of her own accord, and—

The last time Huey Laforet saw his mother, she was definitely smiling.

It might have been a fantasy, just something he desperately wanted to see, but Huey believed it.

And wearing that all-forgiving smile…

…his mother disappeared under the water forever.

Five years later Lotto Valentino Under a certain abandoned building

“I doubt that village exists anymore. Dozens of them were dragged away. It started a chain reaction afterward, and everyone was jumping at shadows. No one trusted anyone… I don’t know what happened after that. Dalton just happened to be in the village, and he took me away.”

Slowly, ever so slowly, the boy went on with his tale.

“The older girl next door used to treat me as her own little brother, and even she accused my mother. I’ve often wondered why; I don’t understand it, and I never got the chance to ask. She just kept screaming, you see, all the way to the end… Right up until the moment the fire took her life.”

As Huey impassively told her, Monica gulped quietly.

“I think about something every time I remember that sound. Their screams were like an orchestra playing the only music they know—a light orchestra and their ironic symphony. We’re all part of it, everyone in the world. Myself included, of course.”

“Huey…”

“It resulted in the person I am now…and this room.”

Having finished his long story, Huey raised his head and looked around the spacious room with hollow eyes.

No one would ever have guessed such a dark story could lead to such a brightly glittering place.

Around them were piles of gold coins and jewels, sculptures, clocks, and other luxury articles whose value was obvious at a glance.

Calling it a rich miser’s stash wouldn’t have been out of line.

He had taken Monica to a room built below the cellar of an abandoned building, and the trove glittering bright in the lamplight had left her in awe. There, Huey had quietly begun to tell her about his past.

After he’d finished his tale—in the center of this room filled with wealth, the boy who was its master sighed and spoke to Monica.

“In 1677, in Paris, a certain secret society was unmasked. Do you know about it?”

“Huh…? Come to think of it…I think Maestra Renee said something about that earlier…”

“In the process of turning copper into gold, they successfully created a metal that looked extremely similar to silver. It wasn’t actually silver, of course, but it was more than enough to fool an amateur,” he said.

Monica looked over at the mound of gold coins on the desk. Don’t tell me…

“Oh, the gold over there is the real thing… That gold is anyway.”

Smiling masochistically, the boy took a single gold coin out of his coat, then tossed it onto the pile.

“And what I just threw…is fake.”

“Huh?!”

Monica looked at the pile of gold coins. Even when she strained her eyes, she couldn’t tell which one Huey had thrown.

“It’s possible that secret society was caught because they rushed their work. And so…I’ve been very careful about spreading my poison through this town.”

Huey took a mask out of a drawer in the desk, but it was an eerie one carved from wood, a far cry from the rumors of the Mask Maker.

“Little by little, I put money in the hands of the townspeople…got them to trust me…and extended my reach.”

He was giving a confession.

He’d created false gold, sold it, and used the capital to turn the people of the town into his puppets.

Huey was telling Monica that he was the criminal mastermind who was manufacturing the false gold.

“But the plan is falling apart now. The town’s influential residents started mass-producing a strange drug without my knowledge. If nothing changes, we’ll go down the same road as that group in Paris, and I’ll lose everything.”

“…”

Monica was clenching her fists against her chest. Bringing his face close to hers, Huey quietly asked her a question. “What I said earlier hasn’t changed. This gold is just my seed money; even if it takes the rest of my life, I intend to destroy the world. Of course, that includes you. Even so…will you help me?”

It was a gamble. If Monica refused him here—worst-case, he’d have to just dispose of her. However, if she was blind enough to love him even now, after all of this, he couldn’t have asked for a better pawn. Huey had pressured her to choose so he could find out which it was. No matter how childish and foolish an idea it was, it was all he could come up with when he was so confused and anxious.

However—Monica’s answer was not one he had expected.

“You’re…kind, aren’t you, Huey?”

“…Huh?”

“If you were really an awful person, you probably would have said, You’re special or I love you. But you don’t tell lies like that, do you?”

“…”

The one standing there now wasn’t the red-faced and fidgety child, but a woman smiling at him.

A memory of his mother’s smile just before she died flickered through Huey’s mind, and he averted his eyes on reflex.

“That isn’t fair of you, though. It really isn’t. It’s all part of your plan; if you tell me like this, I probably won’t be able to refuse you… But you know, that’s all right. I don’t hate that side of you, Huey.”

“Don’t talk like that. Dammit… Quit talking like Elmer…”

“We were together all day yesterday. Maybe he’s contagious,” Monica joked, although it wasn’t very funny.

Huey opened his mouth to say something, but—

—just then, it happened.

They heard a low, sharp explosion, and people began screaming and shouting. It sounded distant from two floors below ground, but it was probably right beside this building.

“Something big’s going on…up there.”

As Monica looked up at the ceiling, her expression was somehow lonely, sad—

—and filled with a subtle, indefinable anger.

The Third Library In the private collection

“But why would they falsely accuse the students at our school?”

In the private collection, the laid-back discussion was still in progress.

“Probably to keep Esperanza in check. The count’s the only one who’s put his foot down and refused to accept the counterfeits. They probably assumed he’d threaten the status quo, eventually.”

“Oh yes, you and Esperanza do communicate frequently, don’t you, Maestro Dalton?”

“…If that were all we did, Esperanza would cut me off easily. After all, I’m a man. Although I’m not sure what he’d do if you asked him, Miss Renee.”

“? But you’re the one who said they were keeping him in check.”

“It means I’m not the one they expect to play that role. I swear… False accusations are enough of a nuisance without these complications.”

Renee didn’t understand what Dalton was talking about, and she tilted her head, her spectacles slipping. Suddenly, Dalton lowered his voice and mused:

“Well, we do have people like Huey here. The accusations may not be entirely false.”

Niki had met the Mask Maker only a month before.

She hadn’t really been planning her own death, but she had thought she wanted to die. She simply hadn’t yet thought far enough to realize that ending her own life was permitted for someone like her.

Just as her heart was wavering near the edge, on the point of crossing it—

—the Mask Maker had appeared to her.

She’d been on her way home after completing a “transaction” with an aristocrat. As her bald master had instructed her, she’d taken back alleys where she wouldn’t be noticed—and then, the figure was in front of her, as if it had welled up from the darkness.

She knew the rumors.

Those who saw it died. She understood that clear, simple rule—and even so, she wasn’t particularly frightened. In fact, the thought that entered her head was Finally.

After all, whether or not she saw the Mask Maker, she was bound to either die after going insane like the other purchased children, or die in some other way. Being alive meant nothing but pain, and no one would notice if she died; she’d completely cease to exist.

In that case, she thought, being killed by this monster—an urban legend whose very existence was indefinite—might be a very fitting death for her.

In that moment, at least, Niki wasn’t afraid to die.

As if it had read her mind, the Mask Maker sneered behind the mask.

Then, the mysterious figure surprised Niki by speaking fluently.

“Did you know humans can do practically anything when they’re prepared to die?”

“…?”

“If you don’t need your life—why not make one final choice that’s yours? Do you wish to save your friends? You could join the others and die of your own accord. If you’ll wear a mask for me as well, I’ll gladly lend you a hand.”

Then the Mask Maker began to speak to her, only to her, with words filled with traps to lure her.

Niki let those words sink into her mind, and she could do nothing else.

Her friends, her own reason for being, happiness, revenge… None of them were in Niki’s heart just then. They didn’t matter to her at the time.

Only one thing had genuinely stirred her heart:

She’d been given a choice.

Up until now, she’d been treated as an object, and she’d grown up without being allowed to choose anything at all. To her, the Mask Maker’s proposal sounded very sweet indeed—

—and with no hesitation, she accepted it.

She didn’t know where those words would lead her. What she did know was that the person in front of her understood that she had a will of her own. That alone was enough to make her happy.

And now—she was trying to take pride in the choice she’d made.

Before the determined girl, the adults began talking about their own pride.

“…The false gold that man in the wooden mask brought to us really did bring us wealth.”

Larolf’s voice was quiet, but he flung his arms wide to add drama to his story.

It was as if he was trying to sweep away the shame of that moment when Niki had nearly fazed him.

“However, what we wanted wasn’t wealth. It was peace of mind. To that end, we wanted a chain to bind the nobles and merchants… That’s why the drug was necessary. You probably don’t understand, do you? What commoners in low positions such as ourselves want isn’t simply money or power. We don’t need a throne where a sword hangs over our heads. Everything is encompassed by that one phrase: peace of mind.”

“Is that why you bought us from the slave trader, too? To get your peace of mind?”

“Of course. If we took an active role in creating the false gold and the drug, we would neglect our regular work, and that would attract the attention of the nobles. There are difficult people on whom bribes don’t work as well.”

On top of that, if someone had pinned down the location of the transactions, they wouldn’t have been able to make excuses—but if the crime was committed by people who didn’t technically exist, they’d be able to feign ignorance to the end.

Naturally, if they’d been dealing with the military police, they couldn’t have done such a thing. However, everything about this town was different, and in it, the city police were solidly allied not with the aristocrats or legislators, but with “commoners with money.”

“We’ve managed to neutralize Esperanza, and those unsettling alchemists along with him. Two birds with one stone. Oh, yes, that’s right…”

Larolf took his club from his waist, twirling it in his hand.

“You and your kind are no longer part of our ‘peace of mind.’ In fact, you’re a cause for concern.”

As he spoke, he raised the club briskly.

Just before he could bring it down on Niki’s face—it happened.

“B-bad news!”

Niki’s bald master flung open the door.

“The drug workshop… It’s on fire! It’s burning, blast it!”

The Boroñal residence

“It’s terrible, Lord Boroñal!”

The butler burst into the room with a cry.

Esperanza’s eyes widened. “What is it?! Have you found Miss Niki?!”

Niki had disappeared that evening, and Esperanza had sent his servants to look for her. However, the answer the butler gave him was one he didn’t expect.

“N-no, you see… The staff who went into town in search of Miss Niki hurried back…”

As the butler spoke, he opened the window of Esperanza’s room and gestured for him to look outside.

“At the port…”

Even before the butler explained, Esperanza’s owlish eyes were wide. He leaned out the window—and saw it.

Brilliant sparks were rising from the enormous ship that had been moored for the past several months.

During all the turmoil outside, Niki was left behind in the room with a guard.

The other adults had all gone outside to put out the fire, but they certainly hadn’t been stupid enough to leave her by herself.

As a result, she had been left alone with her bald master, of all people.

Niki had been brought to bay against the wall, and—

“Niki… You little maggot. How dare you embarrass me like this!”

—without bothering to hide his vulgar attitude, the bald man took another step closer to Niki, hammer in hand.

The hammer was meant for pounding out scrap iron for metalwork. Used on a human head, the inevitable result would be a red, misshapen piece of meatwork.

The bald man didn’t seem to care; he was even eager as he raised the hammer to create his own work of flesh, but—

—ironically, just as he halted the club’s attack a moment ago…

…his own attack was halted by a sudden intruder.

The door burst open, and when the bald man and Niki reflexively glanced over at the noise—

—there it was.

A man in a black hooded cloak, his face hidden behind an odd mask worthy of the Carnival.

“Wh… Who are you?! Wh-what kind of prank is this?!”

The bald man was the one who was startled. He’d been told the Mask Maker was just an imaginary killer that Niki and the others had made up.

Now here it was, right before his eyes—and its silent mask was turned toward him.

Everyone who sees the Mask Maker will die.

Even though the bald man knew it was a silly made-up tale, the idea was like talons around his heart.

“Wh-why, you… I don’t care who you are; I am not one to be trifled with!”

To drive away the mass of unease that had manifested in front of him, the bald man turned his back on Niki, preparing to take a run at the door.

However, his momentum suddenly faltered, and the man’s unease abruptly turned to terror.

The masked man wasn’t holding the rumored stiletto.

Instead, he held an oddly shaped pistol, gleaming silver.

“…!”

Faced with such a powerful weapon, both the bald man and Niki gulped with fear.

The air instantly froze, and a terrible, oppressive silence filled the entire room.

That said—

“Mwehhkchoo.”

—the peculiar sneeze that issued from beneath the mask rather broke the mood.

“…”

Having determined that something out of the ordinary was occurring in town, Esperanza opened a drawer in his room, intending to grab his favorite pistol, but—

—the pistol was nowhere to be seen, and in its place was a messily written note.

Speran: I’m borrowing your gun for a bit. —Elmer

“That…lousy…little…”

Just as he was about to tear into his freeloading guest, temples twitching, he spotted a postscript written under the note.

Oh, and it’s to save a girl.

“In that case, fine.”

Briskly quelling his anger, Esperanza whirled around, unarmed.

…To see for himself what was happening in the town, which was both his enemy and his ward.

Although the circumstances were unclear, a member of the Medici family had given the Boroñals a triple-shot gun created by Lorenzoni.

Its rounded white grip was inscribed with a beautiful pattern, and the firing hammer and other components were designed to look like part of the ornamentation. If that were all there was to say about it, its shape would have been common for pistols; what made it different was its three barrels, which were fixed to one another in the shape of a pyramid.

Hey, whoa, what’s with that gun? C-can it fire three shots in a row? Or does it shoot three bullets at once?

The answer was that after each shot, its bearer had to rotate the barrels and cock the hammer again—but even then, when you considered the fact that reloading wasn’t necessary, it was possible to shoot at a basically rapid-fire speed for the time.

The pistol had been made more than a quarter of a century before, but its unique shape delighted its owner and unsettled his opponents.

It was a gun that would give the one who held it delusions of their own importance; gripping it in hand, the masked boy quietly pointed its muzzle at the bald man.

“S-stop! A-all right, I’ll put down my weapon; I’m putting down my weapon—see, see?”

The bald man set his hammer on the floor, then looked at the Mask Maker’s face, gauging his mood with a sycophantic gaze.

“There, see? I’m on your side, so, uh, cut me a break, all right?”

The change in his attitude had been incredibly sudden. The masked man tilted his head for a little while, seeming to consider, but—

—before long, he gave a small nod, then spoke for the first time.

“I’d be okay with that.”

“…Huh?” the bald man answered stupidly.

The voice was far younger than he’d expected. However—

“I don’t think the girl behind you plans to let you off so easy, though.”

—Niki was standing behind him. She’d cut the rope around her hands on a corner of the desk, and with all her might, she brought a wooden chair down on the bald man’s oblivious head.

Huey and Monica climbed up to the second floor of the abandoned building and carefully peeked out through a window.

People were running all over town in a panic, and in the port, a little ways ahead, an enormous ship was engulfed in brilliant red flames.

“…!”

“It’s burning…” Monica stated exactly what she was seeing.

Ignoring her, Huey desperately tried to think.

What is this?! What’s happening?!

That ship… Is that the one I investigated yesterday? The one they’re using as a drug workshop?

Why is it on fire?!

Is this an opportunity? Or is it a crisis?

“Hey.”

Is somebody attacking the townspeople?! Who is it?! The nobles?! Or did Dalton or one of his people do something?!

“Hey.”

Dammit, what on earth is—?

“’Scuse me.”

“Shut up, Elmer! Would you give it a rest—?”

Huey began shouting as he turned around—and then more questions flooded his brain.

“Hiya. You finally noticed me.”

Elmer was standing there, dressed in a black mantle.

He was holding a pistol in his right hand, and a pure-white mask in his left.

Then Huey spotted the brown-haired girl standing behind him—and when he saw her, he was certain of something very unpleasant.

He hadn’t been this confused by anything since the witch trial five years ago.

And…as if to further underscore the fact, Elmer was wearing that smile, the one that reminded him of his mother and the villagers.

…??! ???? ?! ? ! ?!! ! ?

As he’d predicted, his confusion peaked instantly—and before he could pull his thoughts together, Huey had grabbed Elmer by his shirtfront and started aggressively questioning him.

“Why are you here? How did you get here? Don’t you dare tell me it’s a coincidence.”

“No, it’s not a coincidence. This is your hideout, right? So I thought I might run into you if I came here.”

“…! …How? How did you know about this place?”

“It was written on an acacia leaf I got from a passing vampire.”

“Stop lying! Nobody would believe that!”

“…How…How did you know I was lying?”

Elmer looked thoroughly mystified. Huey just leaned weakly against the wall.

“You okay?”

Elmer reached a hand out to him, but Huey smacked it away and began interrogating him again.

“What the hell…? What the hell are you?! How much do you know?! Why did you come to Lotto Valentino?!” The questioning no longer sounded anything like Huey.

Elmer thought for a little while, then spoke with a slightly troubled smile.

“Um. Well, as you can see, I’m the Mask Maker. I came to color this town with blood and tragedy…uh… And after that, I’ll establish an evil empire and get my just deserts at the hands of the Three Musketeers so everyone can have a happy ending.”

Elmer was clearly improvising, and Huey heaved a quiet sigh.

The long, long sigh finally calmed his mind.

Quietly, Huey got to his feet—and quickly reached for the other boy’s right hand and swiped the strangely shaped pistol out of it.

“Ah—”

Elmer let go without thinking—and by the time the sound of surprise left his mouth, it was already too late. The gun’s triple muzzles were pointing right at his face.

“…Tell me the truth. Who are you? What do you want?”

Huey’s voice was quiet; he’d calmed down completely.

That made Monica all the more certain: Huey was calm, and that meant he would probably pull the trigger.

“Wait just a…! S-stop it, Huey! This isn’t… You can’t!”

“Elmer!”

The two girls cried out as the tension neared a breaking point. Of course, under the circumstances, if anyone died, it would be Elmer.

Niki had been taken into the abandoned building with no idea what was going on.

The building seemed to belong to somebody, and it was usually locked—but why had she been brought here, and why were the boy and girl she’d met a few days before here, too? Why was Elmer wearing the same mask as the Mask Maker? And now that she’d been miraculously saved—what should she do?

I have to die, and yet…

The thought had been running through Niki’s mind—but when she saw Elmer held at gunpoint, she moved on reflex.

Niki took a step forward in an attempt to shield Elmer, but she froze when the other girl moved a moment sooner.

Huey’s eyes widened as he saw the girl standing between Elmer and the gun.

“…Get out of the way, Monica.”

“I won’t… You’re wrong, Huey. You’ve got it all wrong.”

Just then—Niki noticed.

The aura around Monica was different from a few seconds earlier.

“What do I have wrong?” Huey asked dubiously.

Monica quietly shook her head. “The one who told Elmer about this place…was me.”

“…What?”

Huey looked completely clueless, but Elmer ignored him. He had slipped the mask back on.

“Don’t, Monica,” he said with concern. “I told you—that’s a secret…”

However—

“Shut up!” Monica barked, and the other three flinched involuntarily. “The rest of this is my problem. You will stand aside and let me handle this my way.”

Monica’s girlish manner of speech was nowhere to be found. It was rough yet businesslike, not at all the feminine tone one might expect.

“Huh…?”

And then Niki realized it.

For better or for worse.

“That…voice…! The way you’re talking…!”

In her mind, strange connections clicked into place. Niki wasn’t able to acknowledge them without a struggle. Still, the memory definitely linked Monica to another.

“I didn’t… I didn’t notice it last time, but…”

“…”

In response to her remark, Monica looked down for a while. But suddenly, without looking up, she reached behind her back with her right hand and snatched away the pure-white mask before Elmer could put it back on.

“Aaah! Hey, my mask!”

Ignoring Elmer’s protest—

—Monica wordlessly put the mask up to her own face, then smiled behind it.

“…It’s been a long time, Niki.”

Twenty-four hours earlier The patisserie Second floor

When Monica returned to her room, what she saw outside the window was—

—a man with a misshapen parchment cutout tied over his face as a pathetic excuse for a mask.

At first, her eyes grew round as she wondered what was going on, and she thought about screaming, but—

—then she noticed that the man had a red-stained cloth tied around his left arm, and she instantly stuffed her emotions back down inside herself.

“…”

When she mutely opened the window, the paper-masked phantom stepped apologetically inside and gave a little sneeze.

“Mwiiikchoo!”

“…Well? What do you need, Elmer? And why through the window…?”

Monica stood by the wall, clearly on her guard as she calmly questioned the masked boy.

“Huh? Wow—you knew. That’s impressive.”

Marveling, Elmer took off the paper mask and turned his usual smile on Monica.

On the surface, Monica’s expression was the same as always, and her voice sounded indifferent. “…What happened to your left arm?”

“Huh? What do you mean, what happened to it?”

The words should have served as a warning, but Elmer stared at her blankly and asked a question of his own right back.

“You stabbed it, Monica. Remember?”

He didn’t seem to be trying to trick her with a leading question. From his expression, he was sincerely mystified.

“…”

Immediately, it all seemed ridiculous to Monica. Clenching her fists, she gave a tired sigh, then went over to close the door.

Locking it from the inside, she turned her back to it, and—

“How did you know it was me?”

—instantly, the tone of her voice dropped, and she buried the face of “Monica” deep inside herself.

What appeared to take its place was the voice of her true self. There wasn’t a trace of girlishness about it, and it held a rather captivating maturity… However, when Elmer spoke, he sounded just the same as he always did.

“Hmm? Well, I mean, c’mon. When you stabbed my arm back there, you held me down by the neck for a little, you know? And it felt exactly like it did when you grabbed my collar today.”

“…Don’t talk nonsense. No one would notice that while someone was stabbing them.”

“No, see, I’m used to that stuff.”

“…”

Elmer had spoken nonchalantly, but what he said made Monica remember the scars she’d seen that evening, and she fell silent for a while.

“…That was really all?”

“Honestly, there were a few other things that would have helped me figure it out. Like your big brother, for instance.”

The words had been unpretentious, and Monica quietly narrowed her eyes.

“So when you said you hadn’t heard about my secrets from Dalton…you were lying?”

“Nope. I didn’t hear about it from him. Your brother told me himself. Oh, don’t worry. It doesn’t sound like he knows you’re the Mask Maker.”

“…—!”

“He told me on the first day; I didn’t even ask. ‘She only pretends to be meek and well-behaved,’ he said, ‘but do be good to her.’”

As he spoke, Elmer cackled as if he was enjoying himself. In contrast, the temperature around Monica was dropping.

“So why did you come to me instead of going to the police? To get revenge for earlier? Or do you plan to threaten me? Either way—don’t think you’ll be going home without paying the price.”

The heat was gradually leaving Monica’s voice, and her eyes gleamed as sharply as a hunter’s. Her stiletto had appeared in her hand, and she was pointing it straight at Elmer’s heart.

However, Elmer smacked his hands together lightly and smiled, completely failing to read the mood. “Right! Yeah, you said it—I’m not planning to go home for free. Listen, those masks you’ve got—could you give me one?”

“…Are you making fun of me?”

The next moment—quick as a flash, Monica was behind Elmer, snaking her arm around his front and holding the tip of the stiletto to his throat.

The sharp blade rested against his windpipe from below, and if she shoved it in, she could skewer his brain easily.

Elmer understood this, and he kept talking anyway.

“If you give me that—I’ll take up the mantle for you. I’ll be the Mask Maker.”

“What…are you saying?” Monica murmured hollowly, and Elmer gave her a smile without a hint of unkindness.

“If you’re going to go out with Huey, that’ll really get in your way, won’t it? It’s such a weight.”

“…!”

“I first figured you were probably the Mask Maker when I saw how you acted with Huey. My special skill is telling when people are faking their smiles, and… Oh, I can’t explain it real well with logic, but anyway, I can tell. And, see, yours are usually fake, but when you’re with Huey, you smile for real.”

The instant she heard those words, Monica sensed something fearsome in the boy in front of her.

She’d known he wasn’t just a hypocrite. However…she was intensely aware of a peculiar strangeness inside him, and it felt as if someone were groping their way around her heart.

“Monica—you didn’t really care about Niki or the town. You just wanted to get rid of that drug for the sake of Huey’s plan, right? So that Huey could make his counterfeits.”

Elmer was smiling. That was all—just smiling.

And smiling all the while, he talked. He told everything.

This boy… Can he tell the future or something?

His terrifyingly accurate remarks made Monica’s heart skip violently.

“Who told you…about Huey’s…false gold?”

“Oh, your brother told me about the gold. I heard Huey was the one running the show from Maestro Dalton. He’s pretty gutsy, too, isn’t he? The drug’s one thing, but he knows Huey’s the mastermind behind the false gold, and he’s not doing anything about it.”

“…”

She was still the one who’d captured his back. The point of her stiletto hadn’t moved in the past couple of minutes.

If anything happened, she was poised to take his life in an instant.

…And yet, she was at the mercy of this feeling that her life was the one in his hands.

“I know about your past, so I’m going to come right out and say it: You’ve got a murderous side to you. You see other people as pawns or scraps of paper, and you wouldn’t hesitate to burn them all to ashes. On top of that, you hate this world.”

As a matter of fact, Elmer was speaking with complete sincerity right now, with no ulterior motives. However, the mere fact that he could talk calmly and smile with zero hesitation under these circumstances was enough to make him a considerable threat.

“But I’ll tell you this for sure, too. When you blush and smile in front of Huey, that’s real as well. It’s such a mismatch that you look like a different person to other people. That’s exactly why I think you’re probably the one who could make Huey smile—and I bet the guy who can get that bashful smile out of you is probably the only one who can make you truly happy. At this point in time anyway.”

Monica had begun to see what Elmer was getting at, and she asked him a question, unable to believe it.

“Then you came here to…?”

However, the reply she got was no more sensitive to the mood than usual.

“I told you I thought you and Huey would make a great couple, didn’t I? I came to set up a strategy for that! After all, these things should be done as soon as possible! Oh, except I also figured I’d give you a little scare as revenge for stabbing and threatening me, but you didn’t fall for it at all. Oh well.”

“I don’t think ‘Oh well’ is enough to settle the…”

“For starters, to get Huey’s attention…what about telling him you saw the Mask Maker and acting scared? …Hmm? Oh! Hey, yeah, that’s it! If you do that, he’ll never suspect you of being the Mask Maker! Okay, starting tomorrow, I’ll become the Mask Maker and threaten you, so you can cling to him or grab his hand or something in the confusion…”

Elmer spoke cheerfully—but there were things he didn’t know yet.

What the city police were planning. Or what they meant to do the next day.

And time passed, weaving together a knot of coincidences…

The present In the abandoned building

Staggering slightly, Huey asked Monica a question in a small voice.

“Hang on a second. I want to get this straight… You told him about this place, Monica? But I just brought you here for the first time…”

“It’s the first time you brought me here, but…u-um, I was, uh, always…watching.”

“…?”

Monica had abruptly reverted to the way she usually talked, and both Huey and Niki frowned. Watching them out of the corner of her eye, Monica forced herself to keep talking, carefully.

“So…um, I’ve been…watching you…for a long time, and…sometimes you came here…and put on that wooden mask… You see?”

“Ah. Sorry. That’s enough… I get the general idea.”

What the hell? The whole thing was leaked… When?

What did I just do all that for…?

“Then…the part about you being the Mask Maker is also…”

“U-um… Huey… A minute ago, you said you wouldn’t mind if I was the Mask Maker.”

…I never would have thought you actually were.

This time, Huey really did feel drained.

Elmer plucked the pistol out of his hand, then started talking as he checked the firing hammer. “Aw, man. Monica, why’d you have to go and tell him? I mean, I guess lots of problems came up, so the plan was ruined anyway. And fortunately, I managed to rescue Niki by accident when I was trying to see what the police chief was up to, but still…”

Cocking his head in apparent confusion, Elmer muttered a rare, mild sort of complaint at Monica.

But Monica smiled faintly, shaking her head.

“I knew it… It’s no good. I can’t shove the Mask Maker onto you, Elmer.”

“But—”

“I mean, if I did… If I did that, then whether we’re happy or not…you wouldn’t be.”

“No, like I keep telling you, I don’t really care what happens to me—”

Elmer had started to answer in his usual way, but—

“…Don’t sell me short.”

—a dignified voice rang out, and the Mask Maker surfaced again.

“Do you… Do you take me for such a shallow woman?! I don’t care if I have to sacrifice other people to make my own love a reality. But I’d never stoop to letting someone else sacrifice themselves so I could…love…Huey…in…peace… Ah, ah, aaaaaaaaaaah.”

As she was speaking, she remembered that Huey was right there, and her voice began trembling with consternation.

So…this isn’t an act?

Confused, Huey gazed at the girl, while Elmer sighed with a smile.

“Seriously. You’re all over the place, aren’t you?”

“U-um, Elmer, I…”

Niki could easily have been the most confused of the group, but she was actually calm as she attempted to speak to Elmer. It wasn’t clear whether he’d heard her, though; he was peeking out the window again.

“Hey, there’s a pretty good crowd out there now,” he commented cheerfully, seeing that the townspeople were collecting around the burning ship with their weapons. He tightened his grip on the pistol. “So…let’s end this masquerade.”

“Dammit… What… What’s going on? Who did this…?!”

Standing before the ship radiating flames and heat, Larolf shielded himself from the hot air as if it annoyed him.

The officers under his command, and the influential townspeople who were their masters, had all gathered to watch the fire. Because they’d been in the middle of hunting for the alchemists, they were all still holding tools and farming implements, carving knives, pots, and other weapons.

…Hang on.

Larolf had a bad feeling about this. He was about to order his men to disperse the townspeople when—

“Hey, what’s that?”

“That’s…not the city police! Dammit to hell! That’s—! It’s…”

It was too late; farther down the avenue, a band led by mounted cavalry appeared.

“I don’t know whether they’re an aristocrat’s private army or government troops, but…they’re military!”

When they spotted Esperanza’s conspicuous getup in the leading group, a thrill of nervousness ran through the townspeople.

That show-off! He’s even sauntered out here…!

Calm down. This sort of thing is exactly why the townspeople didn’t bring actual weapons.

We can tell them we were at work, putting our tools away, when we rushed out in a panic to see the fire with everything still in hand…

Larolf and every citizen there were thinking similar anxious thoughts, but the next instant—

—an unmistakable gunshot reverberated loudly across the port.

“Wha—? How…?!”

One shot to begin with. The horses of the mounted troops that were heading their way whinnied, and the soldiers tensed.

The townspeople looked at one another at the impossible sound, and they ended up letting the soldiers approach without moving a step themselves.

As if in response, a second gunshot echoed from somewhere in the port, and before ten seconds had passed, it was followed by a third.

The soldiers formed ranks to protect Esperanza. However, Esperanza himself frowned at the three shots.

That was my gun.

Damn you, Elmer… What about this is “saving a girl”?

Esperanza sighed with disgust. Then a villainous smile appeared on his lips.

What’s the point of helping me?

“We now have confirmation of a riot among the citizens. As the local agent of the viceroy of Naples, I order you to swiftly quell this unrest and demonstrate the crown’s authority to the people!”

At the order from the count, who for some reason was commanding the army, the soldiers efficiently fanned out and forced the townspeople to surrender one after another. For their part, the townspeople offered almost no resistance. This was only to be expected: Thanks to those gunshots, this was now officially considered a civil disturbance. If they were foolish enough to resist, a messenger would be sent to Naples, and in the worst case, they could end up fighting a unit from Spain’s national army.

Because they understood this, the townspeople fled toward the “peace of mind” that was right in front of them, choosing to fall over one another in their haste to surrender to the army.

They moved with such alacrity that it was almost as if they had no other choice.

…It’s the same.

Huey had been watching the scene from the second floor of the abandoned building.

When Elmer had gone up to the roof and fired those gunshots into the sky, a palpable fear had spread through the crowd, and by the time the third shot rang out, that fear had transformed into despair.

Huey had remembered what he had seen—the villagers’ faces in the instant when his mother had accused them. The feeling was impossible to put into words.

The soldiers were doing their best to act without hurting the townspeople. They probably didn’t want to start a massacre and sour the reputation of the town itself. The citizens were also surrendering obediently, which made the whole affair feel like an orchestrated farce.

He was keeping a wary eye out for soldiers approaching this building. One of the mounted men was dressed in an oddly flamboyant way for a soldier, and he had started maneuvering his horse over this way. Huey tensely watched to see what the man would do, but—

—he stopped in front of the abandoned building, dismounted, then said something to Niki in the building’s doorway. When Huey saw his strikingly wide, owlish eyes, Huey remembered who the man was.

That’s…Count Boroñal?

Just then, Elmer popped up beside him, back down from the roof. He flung open the window and looked down at the noble.

“Hiya, Speran. Skipping out on work to talk to girls again?”

“Quiet, Elmer. As far as I’m concerned, this is the most important job I have… In any case, Miss Niki, I’m glad you’re not hurt. I hope none of the other women of this town have been injured, either.”

Perhaps disappointed at getting the brush-off, Elmer shrugged and asked him another question.

“Oh, right, thanks for lending me that gun. Do you want it back now?” he asked casually.

Esperanza looked around hastily, making sure none of the townspeople had been in a position to hear. Then he spoke, just loudly enough for his words to carry to the second floor.

“…The pistol is yours now. Now that it’s been used for such a tremendous fraud, having it returned would only make me uncomfortable.”

“Really? Thanks, Speran, that’s real generous.”

“…Hmph.”

After that, as if declaring that he had nothing else to say, Esperanza didn’t look up again. Elmer closed the window, a little deflated, then turned to Huey, who’d flattened himself against the wall out of sight.

“Why are you hiding?”

“You think anything good can come of being recognized by a lord? And you, seriously… What are you? Do you know him? How can you talk to the count that casually?”

“Well, because we’re acquaintances, I guess. More like friends, actually.”

Parrying Huey’s question easily, Elmer turned to Monica, who was crouched on the opposite side of the room.

“Don’t you want to say hi to him, Monica?”

“There’s no need. He’s kind to women, but I’m apparently an exception.”

“?”

Their conversation had raised some questions for Huey, but as he kept listening, those questions were resolved.

“Well, I doubt many people think of their little sisters like members of the opposite sex.”

“Little sisters”… Little sister?

“Did you say…‘sister’?” Huey murmured.

For some reason, Monica turned bright red and looked down. Elmer answered for her.

“Yup. Sister. Wait, what? Didn’t you know?”

“…”

“A lot of this was because of her position. It looked like the police were trying especially hard to catch her this time, remember? Maybe they thought they could get Speran under their control if they set her up as the Mask Maker. Although they wouldn’t even have had to frame her ’cause she was the Mask Maker. Pretty funny, huh? Okay, so let’s smile. Want to join us, Huey? I hear there’s a folk remedy that says smiling helps you live longer.”

Huey had tuned Elmer out halfway through his speech. He put his fingers to his temples and thought.

Meaning… When we got arrested the first time, did they let us go that same evening because—?

His head ached. Maybe Elmer had picked something up from Huey’s behavior; he spoke to him, smiling mischievously.

“It’s important to know all kinds of things. You never know when it’ll get you out of a bind.”

Niki was torn.

Esperanza had been genuinely delighted to find her safe, and he had told her she could come by the mansion to visit anytime she liked.

But I… I don’t have the right.

In the end, she hadn’t been able to tell Esperanza the truth about the Mask Maker.

Larolf had apparently been arrested as one of the leaders of the rebellion, and there was a possibility he would tell.

I… I… I have to die…just like the rest of them.

When she’d told this to Elmer, who knew all about the situation, his smile grew just a little subdued.

“If that’s what you think is best, and if it’ll help you die smiling…then I won’t stop you. After all, you’re free to choose how you die.”

“…Free?”

“Yeah. You can make your own choices now… I think choices are a fundamental part of human happiness. I bet happy people are the ones who are given more options, or at least the ones who notice the options they have. Even if death is the only way open to me, do I die smiling, or in pain? I’d like to find options on that level, at least,” Elmer calmly explained.

Beside him, Niki thought for a little while.

She could choose to live with Esperanza. She could also choose to die right now.

She didn’t know what she should do, and she looked at Elmer—

—but the boy was simply smiling vacantly up at the sky, and he didn’t try to steer her toward any particular path.

Niki thought that was a little cold of him, but at the same time, she was grateful.

Mulling over the varied choices rising to the surface inside her, she made a decision.

She didn’t know whether that decision was right or wrong, but at the very least, she wanted to believe that new choices lay beyond it.

And somewhere among the endless cycle of choices—someday, she might manage to find meaning in herself and the others. At the very least, that’s what she chose to believe.

And for now, she would choose to imitate Elmer and put on a smile.

A few hours later The abandoned building

Two floors belowground

Argh… What a nuisance. The world really is littered with them.

“So, what’re you gonna do now?”

“Dunno. Why are you here, Elmer?”

In a room filled with the wealth of the world, Huey was in a bad mood to end all bad moods, and Elmer was still grinning at him.

“Why? Well, that’s a good question. Okay, how about let’s say the first thing we all need to do is figure out why I’m here. Are you okay with that, Monica?”

“Uh, huh?”

He’d abruptly turned the conversation her way, and Monica only shook her head in confusion. Niki was snoozing peacefully in a corner of the room.

Thinking that it would be tiresome if he wandered around while the soldiers were suppressing the citizens and got pulled into the mess, Huey had decided to hole up in the hidden underground room until morning, but…

…when he’d gone inside, Elmer, Monica, and even Niki had been there first. Even setting that aside, Huey had the feeling the world he loathed was making fun of him. He’d known so little of what was going on before.

And while he was already upset, Elmer in his infinite obliviousness was making remarks that managed to rub Huey the wrong way even more.

“Still, they rounded up quite a lot of them. I wonder if the townspeople are okay.”

“The townspeople…?”

Elmer’s broad statement irritated Huey.

He understood worrying about individuals—someone you had strong feelings for, or a parent or sibling. However, right now, this guy was worrying about the “townspeople,” the culprits responsible for the current uproar and a group that included the people who’d almost killed Niki.

This annoyed Huey enormously. He was planning to chase Elmer out of the room, but first he decided to let him have it.

“Unbelievable. Don’t tell me you want that worthless mob to be happy, too.”

“Sure I do,” Elmer answered easily. Just like that.

Something inside Huey snapped.

“How much of a hypocrite are you anyway? Or are you just deluded enough to think you’re the divine savior of all mankind?”

“I don’t think I can do anything that big, either…but it doesn’t cost me anything to try, you know?”

“Shut up! You can say whatever you want; words are cheap! Ideals mean nothing if you actually want peace or happiness! You’re powerless; what the hell can you do?!”

The words brimmed over and spilled out of him.

Who was he seeing in the boy in front of him?

Was it the villagers from five years ago? The inquisitors? His mother?

Or was it himself, back when he believed that the world was full of hope?

“This time, it just so happened that the townspeople, Monica, and I were the villains of this story. What would you do if none of us had had any ill intent, though? What if we’d both believed in our own idea of justice? Do you have the power to realize justice for both sides and stop the tragedy? If you don’t, your pretty words will just make everyone unhappier than they already are!” he shouted.

The argument was a little unfocused, but fair. To Huey, Elmer was all talk, someone who preached ideals and did nothing, who believed the world was more peaceful than it was.

Huey had loaded all the hatred he had into his words—and Elmer’s smile still didn’t falter.

“So I need power to make it work, huh? I completely agree with you. I was thinking the same thing myself, although I wouldn’t go so far as to say ideals are meaningless. That’s why I wanted it. I won’t say I want the power of a god or a king right away. First, I want the power it takes to get the power it takes to get the power it takes to get that power… A starting point.”

Huey had just assumed the other boy would have nothing to say. He scowled at Elmer—and in the other boy’s face, he sensed something that sent cold sweat trickling down his spine.

Meanwhile, Elmer twitched the mask off Monica’s face, took in the sight of the luxuries filling the room, and casually continued.

“And…I found it.”

“…What?”

“The power to make a change is right here.”

“…?!”

For a moment, that something inside Elmer left Huey too overwhelmed to respond.

“The legend of the Mask Maker, and a system for making real money with the counterfeits. You go ahead and use this system to break as much as you want of the world. I’ll do my best to channel that energy into creating it.”

He’d stated himself simply.

However, an unpleasant, clammy sweat was running down Huey’s back.

“Creating…the world?”

“Yeah. After all, the world ultimately exists inside individual minds. Every person has a world that stops at the edge of their own experience, and all those worlds together form the whole… From another angle, it means that if you can change just one mind, then you’ve definitely changed one-person’s-worth of the real world, too. I don’t plan to stop you or Monica from hating the world. Not if that’s what makes you two happy… In that case, I’ll just use your powers. Frankly speaking, what I want to ask of you right now is— let me use what you’ve both built. That’s all. Nothing more.”

“…”

“Of course, I really do want you two to be happy as well,” he murmured.

What he was saying was odd and somehow unreasonable. Huey stared at his face—and then it hit him.

This Elmer kid smiled constantly—

—but maybe smiling was all he was doing.

The moment he registered that possibility, the boy who was sitting there in front of him began to seem like an extraordinarily eerie messenger from a realm beyond the human world. To find out what he really was, Huey asked him a question.

“What is it you want? If you make everyone in the world smile, what do you get out of it? Why not just be happy by yourself? Our worlds don’t extend beyond what we can reach. Just make yourself happy. Smile all you want…”

“Well, that is why.”

Elmer’s smile didn’t change. It was far too changeless, almost as if he had a duty to hold that expression forever.

“You see…I want to see people smile happily, from the bottom of their hearts, purely for my own sake. That’s all.”

When he heard that answer, Huey was privately convinced of a certain fact.

This boy wouldn’t hesitate to use, deceive, and step on others, if that’s what it took to achieve what he wanted. He would make them his pawns and change their very fates.

In a word, he was “evil” in a dreadfully pure sense.

This boy sitting in front of him might be a greater villain than anyone he’d ever seen. It was just that his objective happened to be a peculiar one; if he’d wanted something other than strangers’ happiness and smiles, Huey might have felt terrified and sick.

No… I’m already terrified and sick right now.

I’m not done yet, though. I’m interested enough to compensate for that.

I want to see just a little more of his mind.

The moment he realized that, the doors of Huey’s heart cracked open ever so slightly to Elmer.

After a few moments of thought—the boy murmured just one thing.

“You’re like…an addict. A smile junkie.”

“Huh?”

“If you want to use me, go right ahead… On one condition. Don’t tell anyone about this room or my ‘business.’”

“Seriously? Woohoo!”

Elmer bounced around innocently, but Huey still hadn’t opened his heart to him.

Monica didn’t even consider rejecting Huey’s decision.

The three of them had simply aligned their interests; they hadn’t so much as glimpsed the true depths of one another’s hearts.

—Not yet.

The young alchemists were still blissfully unaware.

That the choice they’d just made would trigger a great chain of events.

It would spark enormous chaos, once five years in the future, and once in the world three centuries beyond that.

They didn’t know yet. They didn’t know, but—

—they had chosen their path, and that path would lead them toward the future waiting for them.

To Huey and Monica, it marked the end of the world they’d always known—and their first steps into the new.

And at the end of that path, they would find their next choices.