5
Morning, nine o’clock.
The peal of a trumpet resounded on Eleventh Avenue of the Imperial capital as the sky was dotted with multicolored balloons and flying confetti.
“Eve, Alice,” Crossweil said, “we really need to get going or we’ll be late.”
“W-wait a second, Crow! …Does my scarf look good wrapped this way? What do you think?”
“It takes time for a gal to get dolled up!”
He never would have imagined this day would come. His adoptive sisters were talking about “scarves” and getting “dolled up.”
“I’ll just wait outside,” he told them.
He headed out of the junk house and squinted from the unusually bright sunlight. The weather was perfect for a ceremony.
“…Time just flew by,” he commented.
They had finished their work in the Planet’s Navel the night before.
At a total depth of four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine meters.
…Yunmelngen told me there’s treasure buried five thousand meters below.
…And today is the ceremony to dig that final meter.
It was more or less a ribbon-cutting celebration. This event, which had been dubbed the Astral Power Festival of Spiritualism, would be starting at nine o’clock—in other words, that very moment. The miners would be on site as spectators. Writers had gathered from all over the world, and the event would likely be shown on TV as well. His sisters had been extra busy preparing for the spectacle.
“…I don’t care about being on TV, but I guess it’s something people would normally worry over.”
“Thanks for waiting, Crow!”
“Let’s get going! I’m going to look perfect if I make it on the screen!”
His twin sisters dashed right out of the house. They both wore modest clothes, but Eve applied a lipstick to look dressier, and Alicerose had wrapped a scarf around her neck.
“That’s all you did?! You took an entire hour to put on some lipstick and wrap a scarf around your neck?!”
“We just haven’t ever had to do this stuff before,” Eve said.
“That’s right, Crow,” Alicerose agreed. “There are so many ways to tie a scarf.”
“…Th-there are?”
They started walking down the main road.
The normally leisurely street was packed shoulder to shoulder that day. Usually, people would be working at this hour. Journalists, guards, and those carrying cameras stood out the most in the bustling street.
They eventually caught sight of a barricade and an even larger crowd. This was the entrance to the excavation site—the Planet’s Navel.
“Oh, you three are late!” Musha, who had been standing in the audience, looked at them and waved. The rest of their coworkers were deeper in the crowd.
“Well, Alice just took so long getting ready,” Eve said.
“I-it wasn’t just me. You took your time, too!”
“Shush. His Excellency has appeared.”
Drake had silenced the three girls and was pointing at the other side of the barricade. Their workplace, which they had normally entered and exited as they pleased based on recognition alone, was now surrounded by a ring of burly guards for VIPs.
At their center was a middle-aged man wearing a suit, who appeared amidst applause. He was tall, slim, and had sharp features. Lord Harkenweltz, who held supreme authority over the nation, passed in front of their eyes.
“Whoa! Is that actually His Excellency?! He glanced at us!”
“I-I feel like he met my eyes, too…!”
The twins were whispering to each other.
After all, to Imperial capital residents, seeing the Lord from this close was likely a once-in-a-lifetime event—if it even happened in one’s lifetime at all.
The surrounding cameras and newspaper journalists’ kept their eyes trained on that singular spot.
“…Oh.”
Only Crossweil was looking away at the tagalong walking directly behind the Lord: the Crown Prince Yunmelngen, wearing a tidy white outfit. His eyes were charming, and bathed in sunlight, his blue hair glittered as it fluttered. The prince waved a hand at the crowd while walking by.
Then, in the next second, when their eyes met, the Crown Prince seemed to momentarily chuckle. Crossweil was positive only he had caught that laugh.
“…It’s nice seeing His Excellency and all, but…” Eve clapped her hands together. “Hey, Crow, how long do you think we have to keep clapping?”
“It’s about to start.”
The guards surrounding the Lord and Crown Prince had walked up to the front of the lift.
A pedestal and button had been prepared there.
“That button’s supposed to be connected to the drill down in the excavation area. The drill will started up once he presses it. Then we’ll reach five thousand meters down.”
“Oh? You sure know your stuff, Crow.”
“I think I’ve just been paying more attention than you expected, Eve.”
The Astral Power Festival of Spiritualism. In other words, this was the event where the Lord himself would reclaim the pool of new energy underneath the planet’s surface.
“It’s actually kind of unfair when you think about it,” Eve said. She had stopped clapping before everyone else and crossed her arms. “It’s the miners who dug this giant hole in the first place and got us down four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine meters, but then he gets the last most coveted meter? Am I right, Crow?”
“That’s the whole reason why they gave us a bonus to make us feel better about it. “
“Oh, I see. Well, guess that’s just how it is.” She nodded, though reluctantly.
While the two of them were talking, the Lord and Crown Prince had finally placed their hands on the button. They had waited, idling as the cameras took their pictures.
“Please watch!”
“As His Excellency and His Highness the Crown Prince usher in a new era!”
They pressed the button, fanfare resounding all the while.
However…
That was it. At that very moment, the gigantic drill should have been boring into the planet below them at the excavation site. It would be eating through the hard bedrock, chiseling its way deeper, but of course, those on the surface couldn’t have known of that.
A whole minute passed, then two.
“…This wasn’t as exciting as I thought it’d be,” Musha whispered.
“Yeah, and all they did was press one measly little button. I’m not that smart, so I don’t know what’s going on, but is that really it? Is it already coming out?”
No one responded. Not a single one of them had the answers. No one knew that the new energy—the astral power—from five thousand meters below the planet’s surface was already surging up.
“…”
Then, right at that moment, single girl began to totter forward, wordlessly crossing the barricade and leaving behind the other spectators.
She was Eve Sophi Nebulis.
“Eve?! What’s gotten into you?!” Crossweil shouted.
Eve did not respond. She didn’t even turn back. Instead, she walked, her steps unstable, like a marionette being led toward the guards.
“…The voice…it calls……me……”
“Hm? What’re you doing here, kid?”
“I know it’s tempting to watch the ceremony from up close, but it’s dangerous. You should wait back there.”
The guards had noticed her. They tried to stop the small girl with their words.
“…Ugh…i-it hurts……stop……………don’t…come into ussssssss!” Yunmelngen’s cry also resounded throughout the space. The Crown Prince fell onto his knees, yelling and clawing at his head.
…Yunmelngen?!
…What’s happening?!
There was clearly something wrong. Crossweil tried to call to the prince, but before he could, there was a shout.
“S-something is wrong down there?!”
That had come from one of the engineers. He had a comm pressed to his ear and was speaking to the other engineers, but because they were yelling, the audience was able to hear everything.
“A gigantic light burst from the five-thousand-meter point?! That must be the new energy! …But you can’t stop it from surging up? Then mobilize the defense wall!”
Though it was named astral energy, the new power source was still unidentified. In case it had an effect on the surface, the drill had been equipped with layers of alloy filters. The wall should have been able to withstand a surge from a large-scale geyser. However…
An explosive rumble came from below, shaking them.
“…What?” The engineer’s voice was raspy as he continued. “……It passed the defensive wall and is still coming up?! Guh?!”
The next impact felt as though the very surface of the planet were being flipped over. The buildings quaked, the glass windows cracking. By the time they realized what was happening, the whole audience, Crossweil included, had been forced to their knees. Some had fallen onto their backs and hadn’t been able to right themselves in the continued aftershocks.
What in the world had happened?
Or rather, what in the world was happening?
As Crossweil searched around, every single face was pale with one exception.
“……It calls…I am…being called……”
Standing past the barricade, Eve was staring down into the gigantic cavern, her eyes empty.
“Th-this is an emergency situation!”
An alert reverberated throughout the area.
“Please evacuate as quickly as possible. Try not to panic—”
It ended preemptively. The announcement and everything else were being hit with enough force to blast them away.
A torrent of vibrant light surged from five thousand meters below and was spouting from the gigantic opening. Like an immense geyser, it rose high into the air and created a rainbow-like arc.
It likely looked like a fantastical scene to those who saw it.
…Is this the new energy Yunmelngen told me about?
…This light?
That was the final scene that Crossweil Gate Nebulis saw before the entire world changed.
The light called astral power advanced toward the humans on the surface.
It surged through the twins, Crossweil’s colleagues, the hundreds of spectators, and the Lord and the Crown Prince.
Crossweil lost consciousness as he was swallowed up in the eddy of light.
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