3
Snow and Sun. Second underground floor.
Iska’s group had stepped into an accumulation center—or rather, a garbage collection area that went by that name. A gigantic shredder chewed through paper, cardboard boxes were piled high, and broken laboratory equipment glass had been left in containers. It really was a garbage center.
This sort of place shouldn’t require guards, but several were carrying guns and patrolling the place. An abnormal number of security cameras dotted the ceiling.
“Sistia, about the person you sensed earlier…”
“This way. We’re almost there.”
The brown-haired servant slipped by a guard. She turned to Commander Mismis, who walked next to her, and signaled with her eyes.
“Behind that heap of trash. In the back near the cardboard boxes.”
“…Would they put Miss Sisbell here?”
“It may not be Lady Sisbell. I just feel something coming from there.” The servant looked grim as she walked forward.
The cardboard boxes had been stacked precariously high. Commander Mismis peeked behind them. Iska held his breath as he came behind her.
They found an elderly man by himself, restrained with handcuffs.
He had been bound to a folding chair. He didn’t even stir. His eyes were closed as if he were asleep. They recognized his face.
…It’s him.
…Sisbell’s attendant, Shuvalts. So he was here all along!
He had disappeared without a trace on his way to the palace. They had suspected that assassins sent by the Hydra had attacked him. It was a stroke of luck they’d discovered him. They must have been keeping him as a hostage.
“Nene, take a picture.”
“Roger. I already got a dozen. We’ve got more than enough evidence.” Nene tucked away her small camera.
Next to her, Nami clenched her hand into a fist, looking excited. “Sistia, you’re amazing. If her attendant is prisoner here, then Lady Sisbell must also—”
“Yes. But…,” Sistia muttered. “I can’t sense anyone that could be Lady Sisbell. I’m not sure she’s underground.”
“Then she must be on the top floor. That’s the one that’s suspicious,” Jhin answered and looked up at a surveillance camera. “I’m glad the old guy’s safe. Nene, could you do something about those two cameras? Ten seconds is enough.”
“…I can’t. I can block it from filming, but it’ll report to the surveillance center that it’s been tampered with. And they’d figure out that we broke in.”
“Then we’ve gotta put it off. If we save the old man, the soldiers will start a manhunt for us. We wouldn’t be able to save Sisbell.”
Saving Sisbell was the priority. If they had extra time, they could also save her attendant. In other words, if they didn’t have time, they’d leave her attendant behind.
“Right, boss?”
“…Yes. I know it’s cruel, but we’re not in a situation where we can save them both. We need to save Lady Sisbell.”
The commander called the shots. Mismis urged the servants onward, pointing at the elevator. “Let’s go up.”
“…Understood.”
The two servants seemed remorseful, but they spun around quickly, trying to shake off their guilt. They slipped past the guards into the elevator.
The fifteenth floor was their next destination.
Except the elevator only went to the fourteenth floor. They still didn’t know how to get to the top.
“The old lady went to the fourteenth floor, so we should probably start our search there.”
Mismis touched the panel for the appropriate floor. In the high-speed elevator, Sistia placed her hands over her ears and closed her eyes to focus.
“Miss Sistia, can you hear anything?” Mismis asked her.
“I think the guards are talking. But I don’t hear anyone saying Sisbell’s name. And it’s difficult to collect sounds while the elevator is headed up.”
Eight, nine, ten, eleven.
No time for any other floors. They were racing against the time limit for Fog. They didn’t have the luxury of searching every floor, so they had to be selective.
The fourteenth and fifteenth floors. Grugell—the Witch of the Midnight Sun—had gone to the fourteenth floor. They believed Talisman’s room would be on the top.
“We can hide for two more hours…,” Iska said to himself. “And we still don’t know how to get to Talisman’s floor. We don’t know if it’s a special elevator or emergency stairs or something else…”
“We need to divide and conquer. Even though we’ve only got six people,” Jhin continued. “Once we get to the fourteenth floor, we’ll split into two groups of three. Then we’ll comb through the area on our own to find a way to the fifteenth floor. Hopefully, we can find that old lady while we’re at it.”
The elevator stopped. The thick doors opened to a floor that looked just like the lobby. The sterile and spacious hall sported nothing but monotone walls and ceilings. Sunlight poured in from a gigantic glass window, giving the space a serene glow.
“Iska, isn’t it a little too quiet here?” Nene looked around the hallway and knit her eyebrows together.
There weren’t any soldiers around—unlike the underground space around the attendant that was swarming with them. That felt eerie.
“No one else is on this floor. And—” Sistia’s murmurs echoed. “There is one person on the floor above us.”
“One?! Uh…wh-what does that mean?”
“Someone different from the older woman. They don’t seem to be moving, so they’re either captive or sitting in a chair.”
“…Then it really might be Miss Sisbell.” Commander Mismis looked up at the ceiling.
Based on the circumstances, the probability was high. But would Talisman really be stupid enough to leave her unmanned?
“What do you think, Jhin?”
“It’s not strange if they were confident we’d never get to Sisbell. They might’ve covered the floor using a special astral power or used it to keep her locked up.”
Jhin walked forward, taking the lead. He headed to the end of the deserted hallway.
“First, we’ll figure out a way to get to the top floor. We can figure out whether it’s Sisbell or someone else later.” Jhin stopped when he turned to the right at a four-way intersection and clucked his tongue in irritation. “…At least, that’s what I thought. Now this is annoying.”
“What? What’s wrong, Jhin?”
“Look.”
They were silent as they looked in the direction he’d indicated. A hidden passageway. It was similar to the one at the villa. The wall was open, revealing a cavity. They caught a glimpse of a spiral staircase inside.
…Someone went up and left it open. No way.
…Is it a trap? But why would they lead us to the top floor?
They couldn’t immediately think of a reason for it. Iska stepped toward the staircase, attempting to break through the curtain of silence.
“I’m going up.”
“Iska?! A-are you sure…?”
“I’ll be careful. You all come after me.”
He headed up the stairs and got to the top floor in thirty seconds. He slipped through the open door.
“……”
Iska found a spacious hallway in front of him. There were three rooms in the back. The two to either side of him seemed to be conference rooms. The center one sported an ostentatious door with a mechanical device.
“Iska, what do you see?”
“Nothing dangerous yet. I want to get your take. What do you think, Nene?”
“Hmm? What have we got here?” Nene bounded up the stairs and stood next to Iska before narrowing her eyes. She stared at the center door. “Um, that looks like an optical device…so it requires three layers of authentication. Vein biometric recognition, a passcode, and an IC card. It won’t open unless you’ve got all three.”
“This is his room. It has to be it.” Jhin looked at the servant standing behind them. “You said you only felt one person’s presence on this floor. I guess it’s obvious, but where’d you sense them?”
“……” The girl pointed ahead…to the door with the three layers of locks. “They’re in this room. If Lady Sisbell is inside, then there might not be guards because security is so tight…”
“Maybe. Well, if we just need to get inside, we could break the door. Except that’ll call attention to us.” Jhin glared at the surveillance camera on the ceiling and shrugged. “Even if they can’t see us, the camera will see the door breaking. Then they’d seal off the building’s exits, and we’d have a whole load of trouble getting out. If we’re going with this plan, I’d like to know for sure it’s Sisbell on the other side.”
“…Based on the breathing patterns, it sounds like a young girl,” the servant said, looking cautious. “I can discern between whether it’s a man or a woman that way. And the rate at which a person breathes can differ based on age. Everyone’s different, but I believe this is a young woman.”
Like Sisbell.
“Um… What if we postponed this by an hour?” Commander Mismis offered. “We can hide for another hour and a half, and we just need thirty minutes to save Miss Sisbell and get her out, right? So I think we could push this back. I was thinking…we could cast a net here in that time.”
They would wait for someone to open the door.
Then they would follow the person through, which meant they could get in without breaking the door. They wouldn’t be seen on camera.
“Wh-what do you think, Jhin?”
“Now that’s a surprise coming from you, boss. Who taught you strategy?”
“No one!”
“It’s not bad. Whoever would come to this floor would probably have an IC card and would know the passcode. And we can steal them.”
Nami and Sistia didn’t object.
They decided to lie in wait on the top floor. And if anyone came—
At this moment, Snow and Sun rocked from its foundation—following a huge explosion.
It came from outside the window. With a flash of light, the detonation echoed from the ground level, piercing their eardrums.
“Wh-what?! An explosion…?”
“From outside?!”
It was enough to shake the windows. The grounds outside filled with dense black smoke and sparks carried off by the billowing wind.
Was it a bombardment? The flames were too powerful for them to confirm.
“Hey, you didn’t tell us about this.” Jhin ran to the window. “Who did that and what were they after?”
“I—I don’t know! This deviates from our plans!” shouted one of the attendants.
“What is that?” Iska caught a glimpse of something in the blast.
It hadn’t been light from the flames. It seemed to twinkle and melt away in the air in the blink of an eye.
“It’s astral energy!”
Did that mean the explosion had been caused by astral power?
So, an astral mage had attacked this base. It seemed that way from the state of things, at least.
…But wait. It’s not that simple.
…If someone were to do this to the base owned by the Hydra, they’d become an enemy of the royal family.
Even Alice hadn’t been able to do anything recklessly. That was why she had swallowed her pride and asked an Imperial unit to go through with this plan. In which case, how did that explain the explosion below him? Who in the world was it? Who would be bold enough to dare do something so destructive, knowing it would make them an enemy of the Founder’s bloodline?
“…Who is it?”
The warning alarm began to blare. Not a single person could piece together the whole picture. The situation unfurling in Snow and Sun had been unforeseen by Iska—and Talisman.
No one had expected this.
This event diverged from their carefully laid plans. At its source was a grudge harbored by a single man.
“Cheers and applause to mark my arrival.”
The great grounds of Snow and Sun.
The iron fencing had been crushed, unrecognizable now. It was being trampled underfoot by a handsome man with white hair who hopped over it and triumphantly made his entrance.
He had a bold look—wearing nothing but a thick long coat over his otherwise naked chest.
“I was hoping…the head of household would be here. Seems he’s at the palace. Whatever.”
Commanding eyebrows. A sculpted face. The man headed straight into the Hydra’s den, lit majestically by a stage of sparks—tens of thousands of them.
Salinger, the transcendental sorcerer.
He glanced at the soldiers running toward him.
The man who had once bared his teeth at Nebulis Queen VII declared as flames raged behind him, “Kneel. I’ll only let you live if you bow your head to me.”
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