[292] 5. Every Variable (6)
"I won't stop you now that it's come to this. But I advise you to wait. I can't guarantee your lives if you go in. Leave Shirone to me."
The masked man spoke quickly and dashed through the door.
Amy checked Shirone's condition.
A distinct white line—like a taut thread—circled his neck. His focus hadn't shifted at all from where he'd been bound.
But it hadn't frozen completely; left like this, he would eventually die.
Amy and Rena exchanged a look. Without hesitation they leapt through the doorway.
Five seconds later the door vanished.
Xenoger and Shirone, suspended at the brink between life and death, slowly thawed. A faint "guh—" escaped between Shirone's lips.
He had probably been trying to shout "Ignite."
6. A Huge Secret (1)
Shirone's consciousness. 11th-level surface psyche.
Kraaaaaack!
Thunder cracked. Rain lashed down. Dark clouds swallowed the sky so thoroughly it was impossible to tell day from night.
Amy stood in the downpour and scanned her surroundings. The city was unfamiliar, yet oddly familiar.
Buildings lined a brick-paved street; each shop bore a torch burning whale oil. Even those flames faltered in the biting wind.
The usual beggars had taken shelter; only men in off-the-rack clothes hunched their collars and hurried by.
A tarp-covered carriage was making for the city gate, trying to leave town.
It was probably daytime.
Amy and Rena shivered and glanced at one another. Their rain-soaked clothes clung to them; their hair made them look like drowned mice.
"Where on earth is this—?"
"As I thought—you came in."
The two women instinctively covered themselves and turned. Their clothes clung too tightly; caution was natural.
A masked man stepped out of the alley's darkness.
"I thought you might come in, so I waited."
Amy asked, "Who are you? What's your connection to Shirone?"
Instead of answering directly, the man removed his mask. Amy wondered how he could see; thin bandages covered his eyes. He'd never had sight.
"My name is Generade Armin. I have a bit of a connection with Shirone."
Amy tilted her head. A connection with Shirone?
Of course Shirone might have contacts she didn't know about. But someone of this caliber? If Shirone had been close to him, he wouldn't have kept quiet.
"How am I supposed to believe that? Shirone never said—"
Armin ignored her, scanned their surroundings, then pointed at the two women in turn.
"First, get out of the rain. Follow me."
Standing in the downpour for even a few minutes had already dropped their body temperatures; they had no choice but to follow.
Besides, neither wanted to remain in such an embarrassing state in public.
Armin led them to an establishment that was both inn and tavern.
Amy checked the sign before entering. The script resembled Tormia's but was subtly different; she couldn't read it.
"Welcome."
A woman in her forties knitting behind the counter gave a perfunctory greeting as they stepped inside.
From the outside the place had looked narrow, but inside it stretched deep.
The hall was about seven pyeong, with three drinking tables. A group of hunters sat in a corner, warming themselves with hot liquor.
Past the hall a corridor led deeper inside; the floor was hollowed out for a stove. Drainage kept the rain from coming in that far.
Square dining tables were set up nearby; travelers in travel-worn clothes were eating.
Armin indicated an empty spot for the women and sat opposite them.
The minstrel in a pointed hat who'd been warming himself by the stove began tuning his four-stringed instrument.
At inns frequented by travelers it was common to hire a musician who'd play once enough people gathered. If the quota wasn't met, someone could pay the musician to play anyway.
The minstrel played in a mournful tone and sang.
It was a song about a knight who, having lost his beloved, set out to find a place to die. The melody was gentle, but the lyrics were painfully sad.
Rena was surprised by the musician's skill, though the variations strayed from basic harmony. It felt as if several songs had been blended into one.
The other travelers didn't seem to care. No—more than that: they paid no attention to anything. Not one gaze shifted toward the two women, despite their revealing, wet clothing.
Amy found it strange. It wasn't that revealing clothes always demanded male attention, but the situation was off.
Looking more closely, she realized they weren't really eating. Forks moved meaninglessly between plate and mouth.
They merely appeared to be eating because they kept muttering to themselves with downcast expressions.
Unreadable signs. A jarring, off-kilter melody. People who weren't really eating. The pervasive gloom on their faces.
A chill ran up Amy's spine. She finally understood that this place differed from any world she knew.
"What exactly is this place?"
Armin nodded as if he'd been waiting for the question.
"This is Shirone's consciousness. I scoped it out before you arrived; you're in the 11th level of human psychology—the surface psyche."
Amy had heard that the human mind was divided into twelve levels when she'd been to Galliant and learned it from Arin.
But that wasn't the real problem. The real problem was that she'd entered it.
Rena must have felt the same, because she asked, "So this place is Shirone's consciousness?"
Armin only nodded to confirm.
To explain a world this strange, it's more effective to have people accept it than to try to persuade them step by step.
Amy caught Armin's intent and suppressed her curiosity.
For now, she'd believe it. More important was how to save Shirone.
"We have to chase Arius. And in a little while Shirone's throat will be cut in reality."
Armin smiled and shook his head.
"There's a big gap between real time and time inside a consciousness. You likely followed me in right away, but I waited here for over thirty minutes."
Amy did a quick mental estimate.
They'd entered almost simultaneously. If Armin had a thirty-minute head start, time here must run very differently from reality.
'No—actually, the consciousness's flow must be faster than reality's.'
Armin continued.
"Shirone will be alright for now. I wanted to slow time even more if possible, but time fields have limits..."
Armin currently had Keira—fourteen kilometers from Kazra Castle—bound in a time-stop field, so he didn't have many alternate timelines left.
If he'd used the Slow spell ordinary mages use, he could've slowed time far more, but given the circumstances that wouldn't have been wise.
Slow is an active spell.
If most mages fill the only Omniscience slot they possess with Slow, they hand the initiative to a scale mage like Arius. And Arius wasn't an opponent to be settled by splitting time.
So Armin used a passive skill: a time field.
A time field, which occupies time and space simultaneously, persists in the area after activation. That leaves one Omniscience slot open to respond flexibly to an opponent's reactions.
Arius didn't move recklessly in the standoff because he'd seen that.
Thanks to Armin, Shirone avoided instant death, but Armin's timeline was reduced to a thread. He could create more fields, but if their effect weakened they'd be worse than useless.
'All that's left is Flicker. We'll have to make do with that.'
Armin had waited for the two women because the 11th-level consciousness they'd entered was in a dire state.
He didn't want to endanger Shirone's friends, but since they'd come of their own free will, he had no choice but to accept their help.
"Of course, we don't have much time. We must find Shirone as quickly as possible. But I've nearly lost my combat ability, so I need your help. First, there are things you must know."
Rena straightened into a listening posture and said, "Yes—I want to help. So tell us. Why is Zion hiring assassins and even Arius to kill Shirone? I thought Arius was from Orcamp."
"To answer that, I should tell you about Arius first. His nickname is the Grave Robber. In the Black Line he's infamous—counted among the Seven Greats of Magic."
The mention of the Black Line made Amy frown.
There were criminals in the Red Line too, but they raised their rank through notoriety and deeds.
For example, Arkein.
The Black Line, however, had nothing to do with honor. They chased pleasure for its own sake—and didn't care if society collapsed to get it.
"So someone like that was operating next to Orcamp?"
"He's definitely skilled. An Unlocker and a scale mage—his specialty is infiltrating minds and stealing thoughts. He installed a Door into Shirone's surface psyche. He's probably dived in at least once without Shirone knowing."
Amy knocked on the table; it made a hollow clack.
"So everything in this inn is part of Shirone's consciousness?"
"Yes. Things look like objects, but they're landscapes produced by Shirone's mental processes."
Rena asked, "How does that work? Can someone's thoughts really manifest as such a concrete world?"
"Every mental construct a person acquires from birth onward becomes objectified: love, anger, indifference—all become objects. You could call them a kind of language, but because this ties into the unconscious, objectification is the better term."
Armin looked around the inn as he spoke.
"Why do arrangements here resemble reality even though this is a mental world? Because every object in the 11th level ascends through the REM domain of the 6th level. If the unconscious had been projected directly, the world would be a total jumble."
Amy rubbed her chin. "So a person's mind is filtered through REM, transformed into objects, and then projected up here?"
"Exactly. REM is the mental state during sleep—think of it as dreams. Dreams are the boundary between consciousness and the unconscious. That's why both characteristics appear: above the 6th level, consciousness grows stronger; below it, the unconscious dominates."
Armin pointed at the ceiling.
"This is the 11th-level surface psyche—the highest layer apart from the shell. So it's an extremely objectified world: realistic, complex, and expansive."
The minstrel's mournful tune continued softly.
Its discordant variations were still off, but realizing the music had passed through a dream-filter made it less eerie.
Rena asked, "You said Arius is the Grave Robber. What is he trying to steal from Shirone's mind?"
Amy answered, "Ataraxia."