Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru - Volume 8 - Chapter 3.3

 Secret operation

After we’d left Siesta’s room in Noches’s hands again…

I’d just assumed we’d be going somewhere by car, but Stephen led Natsunagi and me down to the hospital’s basement. We took the elevator to B1, then took the stairs down even farther.

At the very bottom of the stairwell, there was a door with what appeared to be a tunnel behind it. The gloomy underground passage was illuminated by dim lights set at regular intervals, and when I looked down, I saw rusty railroad tracks.

“Long ago, it was a subway line everyone used,” Stephen told us over his shoulder.

We walked through that vaguely musty space until we reached a station of sorts. Stephen stopped there, so Natsunagi and I did, too. After we waited about three minutes, there was a loud rumble, and a two-car train pulled up to the platform. There was definitely a world we didn’t know about just behind our own.

The doors opened, and we followed Stephen into a car.

Naturally, there were no other passengers. Natsunagi and I sat on a bench seat, and Stephen sat down across from us. And then…

“What are your questions?” he asked us, opening his notebook computer on his lap.

I made eye contact with Natsunagi, letting her know she could ask the first question.

“Is it true that vampires are an artificial race created by a past Inventor?”

That was what Rill had told us a week ago.

“Yes, I hear they engaged in that research for quite some time. The tale of Victor Frankenstein has been handed down as fiction, but it isn’t actually far from historical fact.”

So the Inventors really had spent a long time researching monster creation? What on earth for? Just a thirst for knowledge, or a spirit of inquiry? Ookami had said you couldn’t always expect scientific investigation and research ambitions to have reasons behind them, but…

“The creation of vampires was initiated by a certain request made to the Inventor.”

“…A request? From who?” I asked.

“The current Federation Government,” Stephen told me, looking up. “Roughly two centuries ago, a series of vicious enemies attacked the world one after another. In terms of recent enemies, they were at or above the level of Seed.”

From what Rill had said, Seed had been pretty high level as disasters went. A rapid succession of threats even worse than him would have been off the charts.

“Determining that the current Tuners wouldn’t be enough to deal with the crises on their own, the government decided to procure powerful weapons.”

“…And those were the vampires?” Natsunagi asked.

Stephen nodded.

“Then why are they making Scarlet kill his own kind?”

The Federation Government was the one that had decided to create vampires two hundred years back. Why were they trying to use Scarlet to erase them now?

But Stephen didn’t answer that question.

Was it because he didn’t know the answer, or was he intentionally withholding that information? Before long, the train stopped, and the doors opened. Stephen got off, and Natsunagi and I followed him.

Just a few steps away, there was a door. Stephen unlocked it, then turned the weathered doorknob, and we all went inside. I saw careless stacks of books and lab equipment, and a sharp chemical smell promptly smacked me in the nose. Natsunagi and I went deeper into the room, although we heeded Stephen’s warning not to touch anything.

There was a big desk at the back of the room; a computer and several monitors sat on it, with a framed photo beside them. The photo showed…a small boy?

“Ask your next question.” Stephen sat down at the desk, setting the photo frame face down.

Natsunagi made eye contact with me; it was my turn this time, and I stepped forward. “What is the Magical Girl hiding from us?”

Stephen was the one who had seen potential in Reloaded and recruited her to the Tuners. As the person who was responsible for her weapons maintenance and her physical health, he had to know her secrets.

“What is she hiding?” Stephen glanced up from the documents he was examining. “What makes you think Lilia is hiding anything?”

…Lilia? Was that Rill’s real name?

I’d just assumed Rill was a nickname for Reloaded. So Reloaded was a code name?

“The way Rill collapsed suddenly last week. On top of that, when she’s in a fight…she has no fear at all in front of her enemies. All that seemed strange, so I assumed she was hiding something from us.”

Of course, her past and her strong sense of mission probably influenced her combat style as well.

But even then, her tactics in battle had seemed abnormal to me. Last week, even as Gluttony tried to bite her right arm off, Rill had prioritized attacking. She hadn’t so much as flinched.

“In that case, you’ve already found the answer,” Stephen said unexpectedly. “She was born without the ability to feel fear.”

“…So it’s a personality thing?”

“I believe it’s a disease.” As he spoke about Rill’s symptoms, his words stayed clinical and scientific. “A cancer of the heart, so to speak. Most people who suffer from it either become vicious, or they lose all their emotions and live as if they’re dead. Rarely, though, there is a third type: someone who can live as an overabundant force of justice. Lilia is in that category.”

…Oh, I see. So Rill didn’t have fear, the one emotion you really couldn’t afford to have when fighting enemies. Was that why Stephen had recruited her to be a Tuner? Had the Inventor’s keen eyes seen Rill’s illness and understood how it could be used?

“But even if she doesn’t get scared, she still gets injured or sick, doesn’t she?” Natsunagi broke in. “If she’s in pain during a fight, wouldn’t she stop being able to move?”

“That is why I’m there: in order to draw out her extraordinary abilities to the maximum.”

I had a bad feeling about this, and those bad feelings were never wrong.

“During combat, Lilia takes a medication that blocks her sense of pain.”

Stephen had just revealed Reloaded’s secret.

“It turns the Magical Girl into a fighting machine that feels no fear or pain.”

Goosebumps spread across my skin.

Everything she had said and done up till now, her past, the inconsistencies—all of it converged on one point.

In order to defeat her mortal enemy, Rill had offered up her life and her body.

“Needless to say, the drug has a few side effects.” As Stephen continued, he booted up the computer on the desk. The monitors showed complicated-looking formulas and charts. “That lack of pain means that the individual can’t tell how much internal damage they’ve taken. She has an implanted chip that automatically detects this for her. When there’s a real emergency, the system sends an alert.”

Was that why that car had come to the stadium so promptly last week? The danger that her body would break on her had been a constant in Rill’s life.

“Rill isn’t just a war machine,” I said.

“She wanted this,” Stephen responded, without turning a hair. “She made a sacrifice in order to achieve her long-cherished ambition. Surely, you can understand those feelings.”

Words failed me. I had once wished for the same thing, so I had no right to say I couldn’t.

“Let’s go, Kimizuka.” Natsunagi had come up to stand beside me. “There are still things we need to talk about with her.”

“…Yeah, you’re right.” In my pocket, my fingers squeezed my smartphone.

“It seems we’ve spoken a bit too long.” Stephen stopped working and rose to his feet.

I still had questions for him. I wanted to ask about Siesta and how to wake her up.

But it soon became clear that now wasn’t the time.

Behind us, the door to the room blew off its hinges, and a series of ominous metallic clanks told us someone was coming into the room.

“What is that…?” As Natsunagi looked at the intruder, her eyes widened.

An iron mask covered his face, and black, shiny guns had sprouted all over his body. Was it armor, or had he really been cyborged into a human weapon? Either way, we’d seen something very similar to this guy just the other day.

“It’s the supernatural Greed,” Stephen said. “Otherwise known as Mammon. I hear his avaricious temperament is quite brutal.”

“…So he’s another one of the Seven Deadly Sins, like Gluttony?”

Greed hadn’t said a word, but every gun on his body was pointed at us.

“Have you covered yourself in weapons in imitation of Gluttony? What have you come here to steal, Greed?” Shoes clicking hollowly on the floor, Stephen stepped in front of us.

Just then, an alarm echoed in the room.

A window appeared on every monitor on the desk, displaying lines of English text. I mentally translated them into Japanese.

“The remaining four supernaturals have been redesignated ‘enemies of the world.’”

“The mission of defeating them is assigned to Reloaded, the Magical Girl.”

Natsunagi and I both gulped.

It didn’t matter what we wanted or meant to do; everything had started to move all at once.

“There’s a back door on the other side of those bookshelves.” Still with his back to us, Stephen pointed to a row of bookshelves on the left. “Run straight down the passage behind it. Before long, you’ll see a ladder; climb it, and you’ll be aboveground.”

“But, Stephen, you…”

“There’s no need to worry. Also…” Stephen took something out of the pocket of his lab coat and tossed it to me without looking. “When the time comes, use that on Lilia.”

“What’s…?” Just as I started to ask, a metal armlike thing appeared from Stephen’s right shoulder.

“This is my laboratory. My sanctuary. I will allow no one to get in my way.”

Greed let out a mechanical-sounding howl.

Natsunagi and I exchanged nods, then headed for the back door, leaving Stephen to handle things. Just before we left the room, we heard his voice.

“Come, Greed. Let me examine you. What illness afflicts your heart?”