It was the third day of her short stay on this island, and after two full days of listening to the assembly members bicker themselves hoarse, even Alice was beginning to feel tired of it.
After all, even to someone of merely average perception, it was obvious where this was headed. Let alone to someone as observant as her.
Alice had to give Lucia credit this time. Even if the Sin Lords' deployment was still uncertain, it was already certain that the vast majority of human forces would be dragged into an all-out offensive.
'From stoking a rebellion of monstrous scale to lighting the final fuse with those crocodile tears…'
'Fabricating evidence of an impending Narkal invasion. Feeding panic and paranoia into every decision-maker with a spoon…'
'And finally, cornering the Sin Lords until they had no choice but to play along with her little performance, unless they wanted to lose the trust of their subjects…'
'Tsk.' Alice shook her head in reluctant admiration. 'Well played. Annoying, but well played.'
As she headed for the room assigned to Ashen, her thoughts kept circling back to the chain of events that had led to this outcome. She had to admit, begrudgingly, that she was impressed by this sister of hers.
Intelligence aside, she had been thoroughly beaten in the department of understanding the human heart.
'That aside… what on earth is that man doing now? The next meeting is less than an hour away.'
Ashen had not shown his face in the chamber where the talks were being held, so Alice took it upon herself to fetch him.
When she entered the wing allocated to the people of the Wrath Domain and finally reached his room, she belatedly realized that Lucia was also missing.
Creak…
Fortunately, the two missing individuals appeared to be in the same place, because she spotted them the moment she stepped inside.
Tok.
What she saw made her close the door immediately, as though shutting it fast enough could somehow erase the scene from existence before anyone else laid eyes on it.
'...I should never have left them alone.'
Right in the middle of the room sat a bathtub.
Alice was certain these rooms had not come equipped with such luxuries, but she supposed she could explain its presence by blaming her man's sudden and suspiciously convenient expertise in magical arts.
What she could not explain was what, exactly, was happening inside that bathtub.
She walked up until she was less than a step away from the pair and asked, "Honey, what are you doing?"
The naked Ashen looked at her and snickered without answering.
He lifted the hand dangling over the edge of the tub, and Alice noticed a hand-rolled paper cylinder, a little uneven, with a twisted tip at one end.
He took a long drag, then exhaled lazily before looking back at her with the innocent face of a man who had never made a bad decision in his life.
"..."
Alice then shifted her attention to the other woman bathing beside him. Looking down, she noticed the suspicious movement of Lucia's hand near Ashen's lap. It was obvious enough that the man was enjoying more than one kind of indulgence at the moment.
"Lucia. What are you doing?"
No answer.
"Lucia Evernight. Please come to your senses."
Lucia turned to her with dull eyes.
"Mademoiselle...Madem—?"
"The meeting will be held in less than an hour. Six Sin Lords will be attending. Do you plan to humiliate yourself after all your preparations?"
"Bonjour—?"
Alice noticed the same sort of stick in Lucia's other hand and let out a slow sigh.
Something was clearly wrong here.
Leaving Lucia for the moment, she returned her attention to Ashen. As she drew closer, Ashen abruptly spread both arms out horizontally.
Alice was at a loss for words for a moment at the sheer absurdity of it.
"...Ashen. What are you doing right now?"
"I am a tree."
"A tree?"
"Because I am a tree, I cannot answer your question. Trees have no words."
"...."
He was a little insane, she realized.
She wondered, for a moment, whether she would have the honor of becoming the first person in history to hold a conversation with a plant. Still, it seemed far easier to talk to Ashen than to the con-woman beside him.
To have to choose between a woman who had regressed into a toddler and a man who had become a human plant. It was the very extremity of choices.
"Exactly when did you become intoxicated?"
"I'm not intoxicated, though?"
Surely.
"Then I will change the question. When did you start smoking?"
Ashen blinked at her like a solemn philosopher staring into the abyss.
What even is "when"?
When does a thing truly begin?
What is time?
How can one know the first moment of anything?
"Mm. That is quite the religious question."
He nodded with an expression so blank it was almost sacred.
Apparently, aside from being unable to speak, trees were also without emotion.
"I have a question as well. Will you answer?"
"Yes, as long as it is not a question concerning the vegetation of trees."
"Why is it bright outside the window all of a sudden? It was clearly dark a second ago. That is rather unusual. It seems the sun has gone insane."
'The thing that has gone insane is not the sun, but you.'
"..."
...My head hurts.
***
In the end, Alice had to resort to dragging her best friend from the Lust Domain's wing just to deal with whatever drugs were rampaging through the duo's cracked heads.
What she did not expect was that the Saintess had the gall to take out her phone and start filming them with a smug expression instead of promptly doing the task she had been assigned, and Alice ended up having to deal with two insane individuals and a gremlin in place of the former.
Thankfully, they made it back minutes before the meeting, but Alice couldn't bring herself to focus on the arguments flying left and right.
She had realized, from that last absurd spectacle, that Ashen and Lucia were not nearly as fine as they liked to pretend.
Well, perhaps not Lucia. She was most likely just going along with Ashen's antics. But she knew her man best, and in hindsight, his current behavior was easy enough to understand.
It was not every day that one had the honor of pushing millions of people toward a war of one's own making.
Thousands would die in the coming campaign, at the very least. Each death would leave behind orphans and widows. And each of those deaths would be because he had decided to see this through.
Logically, there was no need for his conscience to torment him so. He was, after all, doing this to avert a far greater tragedy, and the death toll would surely be much higher in the long run as long as the Narkals existed.
But since when did feelings listen to logic?
No matter how he tried to comfort himself with facts, his conscience would never be able to deny that the deaths to come would be because of him, and no one else.
'Haah… sometimes I wish you were a little more heartless, my love. At least then you would suffer less, and I in turn would suffer less from watching you ache…'
Alas…
Bang—!
"With 576 votes for, 54 votes against, and 10 abstentions, the all-out offensive against the Narkal race is hereby approved."
'Finally…'
"Now then, moving on to the deployment of the Sin Lords. The vote shall include only the Lords and Ladies themselves…"
"I am against," Gluttony spoke first.
"So am I," Envy added.
'Two against, and no one is for. Is this the best we can do after all…?'
Alice glanced at Lucia involuntarily, hoping for some kind of miracle.
Unexpectedly, the woman did not look the least bit troubled by such a lopsided result. Instead, she was faintly smiling.
"I am for." Cornelia's expected vote came next.
Everyone turned to Greed afterward, expecting him to vote against and bring this obvious little farce to an end.
But it was Sloth who spoke instead.
"I may not be participating regardless, but all the kids are eager to cleanse their land of the pests. Stopping them would be unbecoming of us as their elders, no?"
Dorian winked in Ashen's direction and said, "I am for."
"Is that so? Then so am I~" the Lust Mistress followed soon after, almost suspiciously timed.
But Alice did not rejoice, even as the odds seemed to have turned. It was still two to three, and a tie was as good as a loss in this situation.
The only sure way to guarantee the Sin Lords' participation was a victory. Anything else would leave them room to wriggle their way out of it.
And the last man to cast his vote was none other than Greed, who clearly had some grievance with Cornelia, the one who had come up with this plan in the first place.
Besides, would someone as greedy as him really be content with bleeding so many resources for such a thankless endeavor when he could simply sit back and let others throw themselves against the monsters for him?
Strangely enough, instead of voting immediately, the man remained silent, making the entire room hold its breath.
Greed was not creating suspense on purpose. In fact, he was currently reminiscing about a certain meeting with a woman not long before the assembly.
***
"When Cornelia asked for a meeting, I wouldn't have thought I'd be meeting you instead, little girl," the Greed Lord said with amused candor back then.
"So? What brought you all the way here? Are you going to apologize for that poor subordinate of mine who got burned to death because of your poisoned tongue?"
The amusement in his tone deepened. "If so, do not waste your breath. I am a magnanimous man. I forgive you."
Whether he truly meant it or was simply lulling the woman before him into a false sense of security was unknown, but she did not react to his words at all.
Instead, she said in an emotionless voice, "Kokan."
"Oh? Such disrespect, to forsake honorifics before me—"
"—Do you want to know Ashen's innate skill?"
"..."
"I know that you do not truly care for respect or reverence."
If my man's words are to be believed, anyway, she added inwardly.
"All you care about is knowledge, right? I'm sure you are still burning to know what kind of skill allowed him to unleash power comparable to a Sin Lord, hm?"
"You must be going crazy from curiosity, surely."
"Well, I dare not guess what goes on in your lordship's head, but if this peasant's words hold even an iota of truth…"
"If you truly want to see it…"
"Then all you have to do… is say yes when the time comes."
A faint smile finally cracked through her stoic expression.
"By then, I promise you… you will be satisfied."
"Just say the magic word when it matters the most, and…"
"Your greed shall be sated."
"Is that so…" he whispered to himself.
"Lucia Evernight, huh. What a fearless woman indeed."
"Haha. Alright. Interesting…"
***
'Truly interesting…'
The Greed Lord smiled madly behind his veil and let the avarice he no longer bothered to restrain speak for him.
"I am for."
And with those words, the final lock on Pandora's box shattered.