CHAPTER 2
Two Types of Revenge
1
Lord’s office, second building, fourth floor.
In Alice’s room.
“Good morning, Iska.”
“Hey, Isk. Could you watch this little witch today, too?”
“Again?!”
It was six in the morning.
Kissing walked in as though it were her own house. The Saint Disciple Mei, who was her watcher, walked out of the room as though it were second nature before Iska could manage a response.
“Iska, I’d like two pancakes for breakfast. One should have whipped cream, and please make the other a honey pancake.”
“You’re asking me?! Why not ask the chefs?!”
“I couldn’t possibly trust the Imperial forces’ chefs. Actually, correction. Instead of whipped cream, I’d like chocolate… No, I’d like chocolate still, but please make the other one honey instead of whipped cream.”
“I have no idea what’s going on anymore!”
As they had that exchange, Alice yelled, “Keep it down!”
She had stopped combing her hair to turn toward them.
“I will not put up with this any longer, Kissing!”
“Good morning.”
“What? Oh…yes, hello, Kissing… Wait, never mind morning greetings! How dare you come into my room again? And how dare you come in here with the ulterior motive of having Iska make your breakfast for you?!”
“What if he made yours as well?”
“What?”
Alice put a hand to her chest when Kissing offered that bait.
“I thought that you were also interested in having a homemade breakfast from him.”
“Kissing! You understand!”
Homemade pancakes…
She imagined the batter turning golden, the steaming stacks topped with a handsome helping of chocolate sauce and one scoop of ice-cold ice cream for the finishing touch. The perfect combo of warm pancake and cold ice cream.
Plus, it would be made by Iska. She had no reason to hesitate.
“I’d love some!”
“I never said I’d make them!”
“Iska.” Kissing’s nervous voice rang throughout the room. “We are about to fight Elletear, which means we must go as a united front, just like how whipped cream and honey go with pancakes.”
“You just wanted to bring that back around to breakfast…”
“Then let’s talk about more serious things.”
Kissing pulled the knife, which was now wrapped in bandages, out of her bag. It was the same replica of the astral sword she had carried the day before.
“As far as I estimate, this is our secret weapon to use against Elletear, but according to the Astrals, the stone isn’t pure enough or hard enough because it lacks astral energy.”
“Right…”
“So I have a proposal. If it is not hard enough…”
Kissing pulled off the bandages.
She held the glittering black blade up so the light traveled through it.
“May I break it?”
“I beg your pardon?!”
Iska was so shocked, he stood from his seat.
This wasn’t anything he had imagined she would say.
Could something so reckless even be called a real proposal?
“What happens after you break it?”
“It should be easier to carry. And it’s a bit late now, but I don’t have the physical prowess to swing a knife about.”
“You only realized this now?!”
But this was the perfect opportunity, since Iska had wanted to know something, too.
There was information he needed on how to defeat Elletear.
“I want to ask you both something—Alice and Kissing. And try to give me your most honest opinion.”
“What is it?”
“All right.”
The two princesses of the Lou and Zoa houses looked at him.
He spoke to both of them.
“The witch said that her natural enemy is incredibly high-purity astral energy. The astral swords are the main example we have of that, but doesn’t that mean astral powers would also work on her if astral energy is what she’s weak to? I’m not wrong, am I?”
He was met with silence.
The moment Iska said this, the entire room went silent as though it had frozen over.
The excited banter of earlier was nowhere to be heard. Alice and Kissing pressed their mouths into lines at the same time.
“What is it?”
“Iska, so you think that Elletear would really reveal her own weakness like that?” Alice weakly shook her head. “I don’t think you’re wrong. If the calamity and astral powers are opposites, then my sister likely does consider astral power to be poison to her after her transformation; however…”
“Our powers are too weak,” Kissing whispered in a heavy voice as though she had confessed to a crime. “If Elletear’s powers are like molten magma, our astral powers are like…”
“A clump of ice at best,” Alice finished for her.
Their powers were nowhere near as strong. Even admitting that made Alice’s balled-up fist quiver on her lap.
“Throwing an ice cube into magma wouldn’t cool it down. We can’t stop her.”
“That’s how powerful she is in comparison?”
It wasn’t just Elletear.
They had an even more powerful monster lying in wait after her—the calamity. Alice and Kissing, some of the most powerful astral mages, couldn’t individually face off against the calamity. And that was why…
They needed to gather all the astral powers’ abilities.
Iska understood once again why the Astrals had told them that.
“Do you see now?” Kissing gripped the knife. “Aliceliese and I cannot oppose the witch with our powers. That was why I wanted this. This will even out her overwhelming power… No, it’s the wedge that will put a crack in her wall.”
“But…”
How would they get the blade near the witch?
Before Iska could finish asking his question, someone called out, “Breakfast is ready.”
A sweet aroma wafted through the air.
Rin, who had been in the kitchen, brought in fresh pancakes.
“As the Imperial swordsman refused to make them, I did. And, Lady Alice, I am sorry for interrupting such an important discussion, but Lady Sisbell is departing soon. You need to prepare to see her off.”
“You’re right…” Alice pushed aside her bangs and took a deep breath. “We’ll continue this discussion later, Iska. It pains me, but we can’t stop Elletear at this ra—”
A ringing sound interrupted her.
It was Iska’s comm set on high volume.
“Iska, are you in Miss Alice’s room?!”
It was the commander over the comm. She sounded out of breath.
“Do you remember Altoria, to the far east?!”
He could only think of one thing associated with that place.
It was the underground lab where Sisbell had been taken hostage by Kelvina.
The place had also been used to secretly research how to create witches using the power of the calamity, resulting in the creation of Elletear and Vichyssoise, subjects E and Vi.
“The lab exploded!”
“Pardon?!” He doubted his own ears. “Wait, you mean the facility that the Imperial forces built is closed down?”
It had been a lab that could create witches.
Because the facilities had also contained unprecedented dangers, all the materials had been confiscated by the Imperial forces. Not a single beaker or piece of paper should have been left inside.
And the Imperial forces should have been deployed to guard it as well.
“If it was attacked…”
“We saw them on the surveillance cameras. They were astral corps!”
“Uh.”
He gripped the communicator in his hand more firmly.
……Are they survivors from the Zoa’s elite forces?
……Or are they getting revenge after losing communication with Lord Mask and Kissing?
Or…
“Alice, Kissing…” Iska held the comm out to the two princesses. “Help us. The Empire and the Sovereignty shouldn’t be fighting at a time like this.”
The far east, Altoria.
Underground laboratory, Elza’s Sarcophagus. Though the Eight Great Apostles had named the facility in the past, Kelvina the mad scientist had referred to it by a more direct name.
The land where witches were born.
On its premises…
“Damn it! Look what the Imperial forces did!”
She kicked an empty metal barrel.
After returning to the surface from the dust-covered lab, Mizerhyby yelled in anger. The dozen or so subordinates with her saw it all.
She couldn’t hold back her rage.
“They left nothing. Not even a single scrap of paper… I can’t believe they would clear it all out. How dare they!”
The lab was empty.
Even the samples of the calamity that Kelvina had left, the research materials—all of it was gone.
She hadn’t found what she wanted.
“We braved danger by going into the Empire for nothing! This is no laughing matter after we came all the way here!”
“Interim head…”
As Mizerhyby trampled the grass, someone approached from behind her.
It was a girl with a gruff look in her eyes and dull red hair. She had also emerged from the underground lab. It was Vichyssoise’s human disguise.
She had already gone through the transformation into a witch, meaning that her human form was no longer her natural state.
“It may not sound very convincing coming from me, since I became a witch here at this lab, but I think this is a good thing.”
“What do you mean by ‘this’?”
She glared at Vichyssoise.
Mizerhyby didn’t even hide her displeasure.
“Do you mean preparing to have an all-out conflict with the Empire as we invaded their domain and picked a fight with the Imperial forces in order to make our way to this facility, only to find that the ampoules we were looking for are gone? You consider that a good thing?”
“I understand why you’re going an eye for an eye…” Vichyssoise scratched her head and ruffled her red hair. “You want the same power as Elletear to get revenge on her. If you wield the calamity’s power and are as compatible, then it’ll be an even fight. But if you fail, it’s all a tragedy… You should know that, too.”
She silently looked at the container behind her that had been brought in on the large truck.
“I don’t want to lose you, too,” Vichyssoise said.
“I know…”
Mizerhyby tsked and shook her head back and forth.
She understood, too. She knew the terrible the fate of those who had no compatibility with the power of the calamity. She had seen it and understood it all too well—to a painful degree.
However…
She also knew she could never beat the witch in her current state. She was certain about that as well.
“My apologies for interrupting you.”
“Wha—?!”
At the same time she heard footsteps and someone addressing her, Mizerhyby spun around.
There, she saw a blond woman in an Imperial forces uniform.
“Tsk! The Imperial forces again…!”
“I am one of your kindred.”
In front of Mizerhyby, as she stood ready to fight, the woman in the Imperial forces uniform tugged a self-adhesive patch off the base of her neck. This revealed her lightning astral crest.
“I am Shanorotte Gregory, a Zoa spy. Or I should say, a former Zoa spy. Oh, I used these clothes when I was trying to blend in with the Imperial forces, so please pardon me.”
“And you are here because…?”
Mizerhyby observed this woman, Shanorotte, from the top of her head to her toes.
The astral crest was probably real.
And though she wore an Imperial forces uniform, she likely wasn’t one of their soldiers. Had she been a real soldier, she wouldn’t have come out in the open but would’ve called reinforcements instead.
“It seems you are Princess Mizerhyby Hydra Nebulis. I would like to speak to you.”
Shanorotte gave her a friendly smile, yet from the tone of her voice, it was clear Shanorotte had an ulterior motive.
“It seems you are looking for something, and this place—”
Shanorotte stared at the building.
Though she smiled gently, her eyes looked frighteningly sharp as they inspected the walls of the building.
“Wow. It looks like those are astral energy extraction ducts along the walls. So this is an astral power research facility? And an illegal one?”
“Make yourself scarce.” Mizerhyby had spoken over Shanorotte’s mutters. “I’m in no mood for this right now. I do not care what some Zoa straggler is scheming. If you want to follow us—”
“Would you like me to tell you the destination?”
“Guh.”
Shanorotte had produced a gun from her chest pocket.
Mizerhyby retreated reflexively. However, Shanorotte shot not Mizerhyby, nor any of her people, but a surveillance camera in the bushes.
“There was a camera there?!”
“I wasn’t an Imperial commander just for show. I know where they tend to hide their cameras.” Shanorotte also tossed aside her gun. “Our conversation until now was being listened to by the Imperial forces, but now we’re safe. See? Do you feel like listening to me?”
“Just this once…”
Mizerhyby folded her arms and indicated for the Zoa operative to continue by gesturing with her chin.
She was telling Shanorotte to be quick about it.
“If you’re looking for research material from this laboratory, I can think of a place where it might be.”
“Huh!”
Spit it out!
Before she could issue the order, Shanorotte had already continued. “The astral power research organization, Omen. It’s the only astral power lab recognized by the Empire, and they have deep ties to the Imperial forces. The materials here were likely taken there.”
“You know where it is…?”
“Of course. I, Shanorotte Gregory, used to be an Imperial forces commander,” the Zoa spy answered with a radiant smile.
But there was something lurking behind it. Ironically, it was reminiscent of Lord Mask.
“Shall we make a deal, Princess?”
“Tell me what you want first.”
“I’d like you to power me up with your astral power.”
“……Huh?”
Mizerhyby couldn’t help but let out an exclamation.
She had expected the woman to ask to join her or to ask for something that would benefit the Zoa.
“You followed me to bargain for something as personal as that?”
“I want revenge against the Empire.”
A spark sizzled into existence. Shanorotte’s ochre astral crest glowed as she created small sparks from her fingertip.
“I’m tired of the useless Zoa. I’m going to mess the Empire up all on my own. And you can pull that kind of power out of me, can’t you?”
“…”
All were silent for a while.
“Not bad.”
Mizerhyby smirked at the Zoa operative.
“I will use the most noble power in the world to strengthen your powers to their ultimate form. I can only hope we both achieve our revenge.”
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