Chapter 57 - Stalker vs. Stalker (12)

It hardly needed saying again, but Ivan was a rational man. Meaning he was not so reckless and hotheaded as to throw an axe just because a long-distance projection was spouting bullshit.

A pity. He was confident he could bring his axe down on Alexander's head another five times before taking a single breath.

"... Is that a question you need me to answer?"

So Ivan decided to keep the conversation going. If he humored this lunatic, who knew? Perhaps he would willingly reveal where he was and what he was doing.

No, there was no chance of that.

At the very least, Ivan had... a duty as Elizaveta's agent to remember this conversation, prolong it, and report back.

Duty.

Yes. That alone. Think only of that.

Anger could wait. So could mourning the departed. Until after he had laid the Crown Prince's severed head before the gravestones in Counterintelligence Command's inner-garden burial ground.

For now, think only of duty.

Ivan relaxed his grip on the axe and waited for the Crown Prince to speak.

"Was my question strange? You met the hero yourself, did you not?"

"What about him?"

"Was the hero... human?"

"More than anyone."

Ivan's eyes were cold, his reply flat. Alexander smiled brightly at his words.

"Yes, exactly. More human than anyone. Utterly human. In a dark world, amid a horrific war, he appeared on the brink of our species' annihilation, saved humanity, then made his exit."

A lamp shining in the darkest night.

Having watched the hero at his side, Ivan knew he had no religious convictions. Yet he could unquestionably cast divine spells. He was a master of magic and swordsmanship, too.

He was like the sum of all human potential. Even his character.

"His very existence was proof of the Lord's reality. Who could dare deny it? The Lord so loved us that He sent His son into this dark world, into this harsh night."

Ivan had come from a world without God. Or at least, one where God remained silent. He had therefore been deeply skeptical of God's existence.

But things were different here. God existed, and had made His existence known to His followers through miracles.

Viewed in that light, the hero's very existence was a miracle. A creation fashioned by God's own hand to save a world hurtling toward its end.

His soul had come from Earth, just like Ivan's. Even so, it was fair to call that powerful body and talent God's blessing.

And so every human in this world gladly praised the hero. The Lord so loved us that He sent His emissary.

Ivan could not deny it, but it left a bitter taste. The hero had called himself "merely a representative, someone anyone could have become, who stepped forward on everyone else's behalf."

Despite the world's adulation, he had wanted to remain simply an individual.

"If, as the old men of the Church say, we were made in God's image, and God loves us, then tell me. Why has our world fallen so low? Why must we live lives of hunger, envy, strife, and plunder?"

Strip away the name of the human species, and the way they lived and the cycles of their lives were no different from beasts.

It was a question already debated to death on Earth. Ivan had neither graduated from a Theology Department nor held any particular religious convictions on Earth, but answering it would not have been difficult.

Yet, once again, this world had a personal God who directly revealed His existence.

Ivan did not answer Alexander's question. In truth, Alexander had not asked it expecting an answer.

"Did religion exist even in a world without God?"

"...!"

"It must have. The essential element of religion is not God, but humanity. The object of faith is unimportant. It is the existence of people willing to submit that forms religion's foundation."

So this bastard knew, too.

He even knew Ivan was a Possessor.

But that... that was something even the Hero's Party, even Elizaveta, had not known.

Alexander chuckled when Ivan's eyebrow twitched.

"And so I reasoned thus. Since it is true that the Lord loves humanity, the reason humanity is not good must be that our 'God' is not good. I searched ancient texts, pored over old records the Church had banned as... 'heretical,' as they put it, and came to understand, Ivan Petrovich."

"So you got your feelings hurt because your god turned out not to be good?"

"Haha, no. I envied you. All of you! How beautiful religion must be in a godless world. How pure the faith created by those who have never directly witnessed God's reality! How beautiful that humans do good in a world where such faith is commonplace. Is that not proof that human nature is good?"

"... You really make me want to show you our world."

If possible, he would like to drop him in one of the places now coming to mind.

Ivan could all too easily picture extremists of one religion burning a child, and fundamentalists of another orthodox faith throwing bombs into ethnic-minority homes.

It was a trivial intellectual exercise not even worth discussing. An adolescent concern that would shock only children who had spent their lives safe within the deepest reaches of a palace.

Ivan shook his head. For this. For this pathetic nonsense, my men...

"The 'God' those old dogs of the Church speak of supposedly embodies 'light.' God drives away darkness and brings light to humanity. Then what is darkness? What is it, that even mighty God must spend half of each day submerged in it?"

That's a natural phenomenon caused by the planet's rotation, kid.

Ivan did not bother telling him. He waited, hoping for the sort of slip a stereotypical, self-absorbed villain might make about his identity or location.

"If light possesses divinity, is it not self-evident that night does as well? What if the devils in scripture were fragments of beings that once existed? And... what if they were connected to you? The 'Pulled-in Ones'?"

"What...?"

"We do not know God's name. A unique being has no need for a personal name. But what if even God was once called by a name? What if there was an age when giants possessed of divinity walked the earth? What if we call the victor of that age's struggles 'God,' having forgotten the superstitions, religions, and myths of the distant past?"

["The right to turn the final page of truth. The right to behold the hands above this game board."]

Veolgrin's words came back to him. Gods above a game board... giants of old religions...? Was this...

'A constellation novel...!'

Ivan sighed.

If fragments of ancient beings were connected to the Pulled-in Ones—in other words, Possessors...

Oh, wasn't it obvious? Goddammit.

Ancient evil gods or something of the sort must be responsible for possession. After all, who but a god could cross from world to world?

The Saint had said something similar. Accounts of Possessors were easy to find in the Church's old records.

Ivan shook his head, his thoughts tangled.

At last, he knew the cause. The cause of these thirty goddamn years... Some had returned, some had vanished, and some had died. Enrique had told him that.

Then anyone who turned the final page of their story could return.

Ivan did not know his own story, but he was relieved nonetheless. He could go back. That was enough.

"Enough."

"... What?"

"I understand."

Ivan raised his axe, looking at Alexander.

A long-distance astral projection could not be struck directly. But the device producing the magic could be attacked.

The fact that one could converse—in other words, interact—with the projection made this spell dangerous. Analysis would have to wait until it had been completely neutralized. If it were taken into Counterintelligence Command as it was, the command's secrets might be leaked.

"Typical. You seek wisdom from an ancient evil god, prattle on as if you've discovered the truth of the world, establish an evil organization, and plot in the shadows... I get it."

"Listen, I..."

"I told you to stop."

As a rational man, Ivan had neither the intention nor the time to humor any more nonsense. He had heard all the long-winded bullshit, gleaned what information he could, and already concluded that the episode's progression probably would not let him discover this bastard's location yet.

Perhaps this "hidden-room Easter egg" was a sort of character-variation episode, one in which the protagonist stumbled upon it and fell to corruption.

He could not imagine what idiot would turn evil after hearing this drivel, but well. This primitive, premodern world was full of little dark-side enthusiasts. That must have been how this Crown Prince fellow had managed to form an "organization" at all.

Powering up a protagonist through corruption was an extremely common plotline. Venom was popular for a reason. Paint something black and it looked cool: a universal truth.

But Ivan was not a pubescent middle schooler. He felt no attraction to things black and grotesquely twisted. What appealed to him was a quiet director's office, a soft sofa, and kimchi stew.

"I have only one thing to say to you."

"... What is it?"

"Stay alive."

Ivan glared straight at Alexander and growled.

"Make sure you stay alive until I find you."

"Ivan Petrovich. You're nothing but a puppet. The hands holding those strings—!"

CRUNCH!!

Ivan smashed the little mana device emitting the projection spell, then dusted off his hands.

Predictable to the very end.

He tucked his axe into his belt, turned, and left.

* * *

"Gaaaaaaaagh!!"

"Just kill me!! Aaaaaaagh!!"

"Grrrgh... Guh..."

"Wow... What on earth... Um. What on earth... is happening...?"

Esidisi swallowed and looked at Isabelle and Oscar. They were tense and deathly pale.

Screams, screams, and nothing but screams. Screams echoing throughout the building, and thunderous crashes of furniture breaking and shattering.

Then, before long...

THUD. THUD.

Heavy footsteps.

GULP...

Apart from their dry swallowing, none of the three could make a sound. They stared at the door, their eyes taut with fear.

A little time passed before the footsteps sounded again. They came up to the door. Someone pulled at the handle.

RATTLE.

The locked handle turned several times.

CRASH!!

An axe blade split the door apart.

A long silhouette stretched across the dim room, between the faint lights.

A horrible reek of blood swept in.

"P-please don't..."

"Stay still."

The shadow strode toward Esidisi. With a frightened squeak, she shrank into herself, trying to cover her body.

CLANK.

Yet with that brief sound, her hands were free. He had split the chain binding them straight down the middle.

"Can you stand?"

"Y-yes... Ah, n-no. My legs have g-gone weak."

"Wait."

The man turned and walked away.

CLANK. CLANK.

Soon, with the sound of metal breaking, the other two were freed from their chains as well.

Isabelle's excited voice reached Esidisi's tense ears.

"M-mister, is that you?! Oh my goodness! Mister! You came to rescue us!"

"Mm."

"How did you know I was here... Oh! W-were you watching me?"

Isabelle's "mister." In other words, the stalker!

Esidisi stared at Isabelle in horror. Was it really safe to ask a stalker whether he had been stalking you?

Especially an axe-wielding stalker who had just come in covered in blood...?

"No, I followed Morde."

Esidisi crumpled at those words.

Oh, it was me. Right. He was stalking me, too.

The bottomless desires of this outrageous villain terrified her...

"Get on my back."

"No, ah, ugh, I'm fi..."

"We're wasting time."

Ivan hoisted the trembling Esidisi onto his back. Without a word, he strode back the way he had come.

* * *

Blood. Flesh. Pieces of dead bodies.

Half-destroyed exterior walls, shattered windows, smashed and split doors.

Corridor after corridor of it. Corridors that had been pristine white when the captives were brought in now scarcely had a patch that wasn't red.

Terrifying.

Esidisi trembled. This man, and the things he was capable of, terrified her.

"It's all right."

"Eek...!"

"It's all right, Esidisi. It's over now."

Huh.

Her eyes squeezed shut as she trembled, Esidisi felt a hand slowly patting her back. She cautiously opened her eyes.

Close-cropped hair. The firm, exposed nape of his neck, leading down to a broad, muscular back.

A calm voice, steady and unhurried.

Huh...?

["It's all right, Esidisi. It's over now."]

Those words. She had heard them before.

And that voice, now that she thought about it... had she heard... that, too?

Esidisi stared blankly at the back of Ivan's head for a long while.

Then she squeezed her eyes shut and pictured the moment he had rescued her.

Recalled his face when they had met on campus not long ago.

Thought back, detail by detail, to that man from the distant past she had vaguely imagined while covering his beard with her hand...

"Uh... Uhhh...? U-u-u-un-uncle...?!!"

"Hm?"

"Uncle... Ivan...???"

"Mm."

"Uh... Ah... Oh... Huh? Why...?"

After stammering for a while with her brain hopelessly overloaded, Esidisi slumped forward and fainted.

Ivan supported her limp body and quietly nodded.

Well, after being betrayed by a Huscarl she trusted and held captive all day, she was bound to be exhausted.

People could faint once the tension left them. He had seen plenty of soldiers do that, so he was not alarmed.

"Mm."

Without another word, he adjusted Esidisi on his back and walked on. Running an orphanage had given him plenty of experience picking up exhausted children and carrying them home.

* * *

"... Why?"

"What's wrong, Miss Isabelle?"

"Why... What about me...? I was kidnapped first. I knew him first..."

Biting her nails, Isabelle had been glaring for some time at Esidisi on Ivan's back.

The girl she had thought was her friend had ridden on his back, chatting away with him so cozily. Then, out of nowhere, she had even wrapped her arms tight around his neck and given herself over to him.

Rubbing those rather "exceptional" parts of her body against his back, holding him so close. So tight. What an eyesore!

Getting a piggyback ride because her legs had gone weak, whispering in his ear as they strolled along...!!

"Iwasfirst. She'scopyingme."

"Um, Miss Isabelle. Well. You're scaring me a little."

"Traitor..."

She bit down hard, and blood began to seep from the tip of her thumb.