Ishura - Volume 9 - Chapter 11.1

Chapter 11 - Death, Poetry and Cogwheels

While Shalk the Sound Slicer and Tu the Magic’s fight to stop the other in their tracks was unfolding, Aureatia, on the other hand, was focusing all its processing power on an operation of a different kind.

In addition to the many staff officers, there were three members of the Twenty-Nine Officials in charge of the operation—Ninth General Yaniegiz, Twentieth Minister Hidow, and Fourth Minister Kaete gathered in the command room. Tension filled the air.

The nature of the operation meant the other two’s operation was happening in parallel to Yaniegiz’s own.

As Kaete was busy making adjustments on some machinery, Hidow spoke up, sitting with his legs crossed.

“Yaniegiz. This bait of yours is going to work, right?”

“Kia will be here.”

When masterminding a strategy to slay Kia the World Word, Yaniegiz the Chisel painstakingly investigated Kia’s motives for still remaining in Aureatia.

With her attack on the royal palace, Kia had invited the greatest moment of crisis the Kingdom could face, and nevertheless, unlike Iriolde’s camp or the Old Kingdoms’ Loyalists, from the start her goal hadn’t been to force her demands to be met through violence.

Yaniegiz the Chisel remembered everything he had spoken about with Kia during her assault.

Her demand was to let her see Sephite. On top of that, she recoiled from the chaos of war.

Comparing it to all her behavior up until now, this wasn’t just a pretext to rationalize her inconsistent and confusing behavior or her violent actions. She had some kind of goal that was possible for Sephite to resolve for her, without necessitating violence.

“Well, I suppose I’ll apologize for this operation being such a heavily kept secret. Allow me to take this opportunity to explain. Kia the World Word can invoke nearly omnipotent Word Arts… Either that or she possesses some sort of method that would be close to it. All this you know, yes?”

“I was told that’s the only way to think about it. Me, I’m still on the fence if I believe it or not.”

“Despite that, she’s continued to hide out, and during her attack on the royal palace, when she incapacitated us, she didn’t rely on force to bust her way through. Why do think that is? Clearly…Kia the World Word fears some sort of unfavorable outcome that would come with a firmer hand. First, we looked into this.”

Yaniegiz produced a bundle of paper documents.

The city guards, part of Aureatia’s police apparatus, were under the jurisdiction of the head of the Police Agency, Yaniegiz the Chisel.

“What’s all that, then? Written evidence?”

“Very astute observation. The criminal records placed inside the Northern Outer Wards’ fifteenth guard post are not documents that would normally be shared with on-site guards. I supplied them specifically to make Kia check through them all and had them placed on the desk to be easily discovered. The soldiers on-site go on patrols at set times and leave the post abandoned, so I had them investigate when they returned from patrol if the position or order of the documents was different…or any traces that some formless presence had touched them.”

“That’s as unreliable as it gets. You think a brat that age is getting any information from a written document?”

“Hidow, I’d wager you’re too dismissive of children. They’ll actually study anything if it’s in order to survive. That’s what I did, after all. Anyway, to get back on subject, we ensured that this was the only means for Kia to gain any investigatory briefs in the sixth borough of the Northern Outer Ward. As well as ensured only one guard would be normally stationed there, and when they changed shifts, they’d only talk about things that were absolutely necessary.”

As long as Kia was a criminal, she wouldn’t be able to live her life in ignorance. Given she didn’t possess any irregular perception powers like Kuuro the Cautious’s Clairvoyance, then Kia the World Word was bound to seek information.

Much more, right now she wasn’t acting alone, but accompanied by Tu and Uhak, as well. It was not easy to uproot a base of operations capable of sheltering an ogre. In order to secure their safety, Kia was guaranteed to seek investigatory briefs in the sixth borough and not from any other districts.

“And, within this lone source of available information, we laid a trap. Reports on Elea the Red Tag.”

“…Uhh? Elea’s already dead, though.”

“Yes, indeed. That’s why we gave her information suggesting she was still alive and checked what her reaction would be. If she spent every day without rest decoding the investigation report. How ruffled and shuffled the documents were on the days Elea the Red Tag’s investigatory information wasn’t included. If, when we included accounts that suggested the facility where the person in question was kept, there then appeared any signs that there had been an invisible intruder.”

It was seen as almost unquestionable that Elea the Red Tag had tried to use Kia the World Word as a weapon, but most likely, she wasn’t coercing Kia through some background intimidation like force or hostages of some kind.

According to the testimony gathered by the Police Agency about her living conditions at the time, Yaniegiz determined that, if anything, it was far more likely that Kia loved Elea like a mother figure.

“Repeatedly sending out reports with updated content and making her read them also served as an experiment to gradually teach Kia the written script and improve her reading comprehension skills. I sent out a notice to the effect that Elea the Red Tag would be executed today. I outlined that the facility detaining her was in the abandoned district directly next to the Dogae Basin, and with Kia’s current reading comprehension skills, she should have immediately arrived at this information and our location here.”

“What the hell, Yaniegiz?!”

Hidow stood up.

“You have any idea what you’ve done?!”

“Hee-hee, a humane method, isn’t it? Since we’re using someone who’s already dead as a hostage. This is guaranteed to draw Kia the World Word outside the city. Or do you have some counterproposal? A way that would be sure to lure out a master of almighty Word Arts, that you came up with all by yourself?”

“That ain’t the problem! You idiots… You’re really trying to step on a monster’s tail this late in the game?! You did all of this knowing full well that Elea would be an effective hostage, didn’t you?! If Kia the World Word really is an omnipotent Word Arts caster…if you fail to dispose of her here, you’ll be looking at an all-out war against a monster like that!”

“And what of it?”

Yaniegiz merely returned Hidow’s gaze with his own murky eyes.

Now it was clear. A person like Hidow the Clamp must not have been able to understand the reason behind such an operation.

“It’s fine, isn’t it? Don’t tell me, are you trying to say you wanted Rosclay to be the only one risking his life, while we and the rest of Aureatia sit safe and sound, is that it? This is about killing a monster that could destroy the world. Why’re you even thinking about what to do next if we fail here?”

That future didn’t exist. Rosclay was dead.

There was no longer any meaning to fighting with one’s eyes set to a peaceful future.

Yaniegiz inherited Rosclay’s dying wish. Simple, and thorough, eradication.

Kia the World Word. Hiroto the Paradox. Soujirou the Willow-Sword.

There was no way he could ever let these monsters be the only ones living carefree without losing anything.

“I said I would kill her, didn’t I? Kia the World Word will die…as she feels the guilt for chasing Elea to her death.”

“…You slimy bastard, that was your goal right from the damn start! Shared operational responsibility, my ass! You did all of that without consulting us whatso—”

“Give it a rest.”

Kaete chimed in as he continued his mechanical adjustments.

“You all seem to be tangled up in a needless mess here, but there’s no issue at all if we can win. Am I wrong? Mestelexil’s victory is assured. There’s no need to worry about anything.”

“Oh, it’s assured, is it?! We don’t even know the full extent of what exactly Kia is capable of, dammit! How could we ever have a certain chance of victory?!”

“What then, do you want to get ahold of this Uhak the Silent or what have you, who can neutralize Word Arts and defeat her, then? Hmph. You know those arrangements have already fallen apart. Now that Kia is sheltering Uhak, there’s no way he would willingly stop her for us of his own volition.”

Securing Uhak the Silent and using him as Aureatia’s trump card—the broad principle hadn’t changed.

However, due to a series of puzzling events leading to his desertion, the likelihood had become exceedingly small that they would be able to eliminate the threat he was most suited to deal with in Kia.

“Overpowering her. Mestelexil is the only one who can make that possible. Mestelexil isn’t a dull-headed and unwieldy pawn like Uhak. Watch me prove that simply having a single fighter like Mestelexil around…we’ll be able to eradicate any and all threats to Aureatia with ease.”

The machine Kaete was working on lit up.

“Killing the almighty is little more than ideal target practice.”

This operation wasn’t going to be commanded like those before it, sitting in front of a radzio.

On the machine was displayed a real image of the abandoned district, visible in green shades.

A device that used electron beams irradiated by an internal electron gun to draw transmitted scenery—in the Beyond, it was known as a cathode-ray tube.

There was nothing that needed to be defended in the Dogae Basin that night. The situation was prepared for Mestelexil to be able to display his full capabilities.

If this operation wasn’t enough to eliminate her, ultimately, they had no methods of defeating Kia.

A tall, steep hill enclosed the whole vicinity. Out in front stretched lonesome ruins.

The weathered signs that once displayed shops’ emblems were lurched over. Reddish brown soil fluttered in the night breeze.

Kia the World Word was standing in the abandoned district of the Dogae Basin.

Even she herself didn’t really recall the path her thoughts had gone down after seeing the guard post documents up until now, nor the Word Arts she used to get here.

She just strongly wished to head to this location, and in the next moment, she was here.

This is my fault.

She felt something crumpled up in her right hand.

Kia realized she had come all this way while still gripping the circulated notice from the guard post in her hand.

Because of me, E-Elea’s going to…

Elea the Red Tag was going to be executed.

A rural guard post was sure to have gotten the information late as well. The notice had arrived on the scheduled day.

It didn’t detail the time. She had moved to the spot indicated on the map without even sparing a moment to let Tu or Uhak know, but the execution may have long been carried out already.

Now, it was nighttime.

“E-Elea…Protect Elea. Protect Elea. Protect Elea…”

Mumbling almost compulsively, she walked through the abandoned district.

Kia didn’t know the precise location where Elea was being detained, so she continued to send the command out to any and all targets her Word Arts would reach.

“It’s okay. I’m sure it’s fine… I-I mean, the documents wouldn’t get delivered after the scheduled execution time… I must have made it in time… A-Aureatia’s way different from other places, and it’s normal for people to work late into the night… They couldn’t have done the execution in the afternoon, I’m sure of it…”

If she didn’t vocalize her attempts to ease her fears, she felt like she’d lose her mind.

Elea should have been granted a stay of execution.

It’s my fault.

It was described as her punishment as Kia’s former sponsor, in order to make her take responsibility for the royal palace attack.

Kia had believed that even if she waited, Elea would be able to properly atone for her crimes.

Wasn’t it actually that she had just wanted to believe in such a convenient outcome?

Had Kia’s childish desire not to fight, not to destroy her current tranquility, and her wish to believe that Elea would return to her safe and sound without Kia doing anything, all served to bring this about?

“Elea!”

Through tears, Kia shouted in the empty town.

Elea was somewhere in this dilapidated town, in a lonesome place like this.

Kia didn’t have any spare energy to feel suspicious at the lack of residents. Simply arriving by wishing for it like this, without investigating or having any knowledge that this was an abandoned district, was a weakness of hers.

“Elea! You’re here, aren’t you?! I’ve come for you, okay?! So, please… C’mon, come back to Eta with me…! I don’t, I don’t want to never see you again, Elea…”

All she could do was shout in her tearful voice, interrupted by sobs.

Kia’s Word Arts were all powerful. They should have been able to do anything.

“Please, come home with me, together…”

It was like the air answered Kia’s words.

It was an intense, warm light, like the sun.

“Ele…”

The air liquefied.

A heat ray of death burned everything.

“What the hell happened?!”

Hidow the Clamp was the first to shout.

The monitor in the command room was synchronized with Mestelexil’s sights, but the immense electromagnetic wave and heat from the attack made the receiver image blur and shake beyond recognition.

Inside the room’s confused uproar, Kaete the Round Table alone gazed at the screen, his arms arrogantly crossed.

“I doubt simpletons like you lot could ever comprehend it, but I’ll at least give you an explanation. They’re tactical ballistic missiles from the Beyond. Using Mestelexil’s observational data to line up the target, we remotely launched three of the missiles he produced ahead of time and fired them at her all at once.”

Even if he was being driven by personal sentiments bordering on pure madness, Yaniegiz was a capable man. The troublesome and difficult work of tearing Kia the World Word away from her companions and isolating her had been carried out perfectly. That had been a necessary step.

In order for Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge to battle in his true capacity, they had needed to lure their sole target into a situation completely devoid of any citizens or targets that needed protecting. In other words—

“A nuclear attack. We’re killing Kia the World Word without showing a shred of mercy.”

It was a weapon that used a nuclear fission chain reaction, possessing the most destructive power that the Beyond’s scientific technology had ever produced.

Thermal heat that melted everything, a shock wave that was impossible to defend against, and poison that contaminated the soil.

These explosives were installed not only into one, but three missiles, and set up to explode simultaneously above Kia’s head.

Kia the World Word’s abilities were still a complete mystery, including the limits of the power she could display—Hidow’s opinion of the matter had been understandable.

Thus, they hammered that limit.

Openings came about from using a wait-and-see approach to one’s attacks to wipe away anxieties. As long as they had resolved to attack her, the correct move was to hit her with the largest possible attack they could think of right from the start.

“The image is coming into focus again!”

Yaniegiz shouted. While the electromagnetic pulse generated by the nuclear blast should have still been in effect, Mestelexil could even adapt the methods of electric wave transmission right away to—

“……!”

Looking at the monitor, everyone fell silent.

A completely unexpected sight greeted them on the screen.

Not only had the three simultaneous nuclear missile attacks failed to vaporize Kia…

“The town is totally untouched?!”

Kia possessed defensive abilities that beggared anything they could imagine. While it was the worst expectation he had, Kaete hadn’t completely ignored the possibility this might not be able to kill her.

Therefore, in order to conquer this enemy, they needed to understand her inscrutable way of thinking.

“This girl…protected the town, too?”

“Huh? Uh…”

As the earth and soil was exposed to hellish heat all around, Kia simply stood confused.

“What was that?”

She understood that something like the sun had appeared directly above her head without any warning.

Bathed in the blinding light, she couldn’t really get a glimpse of it. It hurt, like she had been punched in the head.

It was supposed to be nighttime, yet the area around her was still brightly lit up.

“…Oh, protect the town…from anything dangerous…!”

As she wobbled through the perfectly untouched town, Kia incanted her Word Arts afterward.

The fatal heat ray, shock wave, and radiation didn’t have any effect on the buildings in the abandoned district whatsoever.

She needed to protect all of it. She still didn’t know which building had Elea in it.

Still, what exactly was this unexplained phenomenon?

Since it was so massively powerful, Kia didn’t even register it as an attack against her.

“Did something happen in Aureatia…? Or maybe it was some sort of abnormal weather pattern I don’t know about.”

In any case, she needed to search for Elea.

If there was a chance the same sort of phenomenon would continue, it was all the more important to get Elea away from this place.

“Protect Elea. Protect Elea. Protect Elea.”

At that moment, some kind of strong impact hit Kia in the back. Something had grabbed her.

Her vision went blurry for a brief moment before spinning upside down. The ground below was rapidly falling away from her.

She was ascending upward at terrifying speeds.

The fog-like substance Kia passed through at the moment was likely a cloud.

“Huh?”

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

A circular head with a single red eye swirled around.

Gripping Kia’s body in its massive hand was a mysterious and unknown golem with deep blue armor plating.

She was flying. The machinery on its back continued to emit blinding light, and its propulsion force was dragging her up to terrifying altitudes.

“…What’s with you?!”

“I-I am, Mestelexil!”

Kia went to reply that she wasn’t asking for his name, but for the time being, she was stuck in a nightmare scenario.

Just how fast were they going right now? In this brief second, just how high up had they climbed?

The wind pressure and acceleration speed were likely enough to instantly kill the average person, but they didn’t have any effect on Kia, her life protected through Word Arts. If anything, she was more scared at the fact that she was too far away to protect Elea.

It’s okay. I cast Word Arts on the area around her. Right now, I need to do something about this strange thing.

“You’re called, Kia, right?! Who, made you?!”

“Huh?!”

“I’m Mestelexil! Mama, made me! Her strongest, child!”

“Mestelexil… Wait, you’re a hero candidate…!”

Mestelexil the Box of Desperate Knowledge. She had heard the name before, at the very least.

Why had he shown up in a place like this, and on top of that, why was he taking her away?

Even the color of the sky had changed and was beginning to clear into an indigo blue. She was looking down at a cloud.

She assumed it must have been created together with the horrible light from before. A black, umbrella-shaped cloud was right below her eyes.

“Exil io mestel. Maclast shar naptes. Saltobasa. Diqudlar ist mia tecnast—” (From Mestel to Exil. Draw from beauty. Rectangular maple. Bottom of comet collusion vortex—)