[364] The Worst Project (2)
Shirone arrived on the 18th floor. Any staff member could come here, but going past the guildmaster's door was a completely different matter.
Plu spoke to Shirone as he stood before the door, taking a deep breath.
"Listen carefully. The guildmaster is behind this door."
Shirone turned to Plu.
"Whatever you hear in there must never get out. It's on a completely different level from what I know. I won't ask you anything from now on. So don't show any reaction."
Shirone could feel Plu's resolve. He himself had risked his life to get here. He was curious what Gaold would say, but he hoped it would be something they could handle.
Plu knocked on the door in Shirone's place.
"Shirone is here."
The door opened and Kangnan poked her head out. After scanning the hallway, she looked at Shirone.
"You're here. You've recovered quickly."
"Yes. Thanks to your concern."
"Come in. Plu, go downstairs and take care of your business. Thank you for your work."
Plu wasn't upset. From now on, it wasn't his place to interfere.
"I only did what needed to be done. Goodbye."
Only after Plu left did Kangnan swing the door wide.
Gaold, his hair freshly dyed, was half-buried in the worn sofa of the guildmaster's office. The wallpaper smelled faintly of strong tobacco.
"You're here? Sit."
After Shirone sat opposite Gaold, Kangnan brought them tea.
No one spoke. All three knew who would open the conversation.
"Miro is…"
Gaold finally broke the silence.
"She was a classmate of mine."
"Yes, I know."
"What an odd girl. Or eccentric—call it whatever you like. One day she claimed she could create life. I told her to prove it, and she said she needed a cadaver."
Gaold began with Miro. Shirone, who had been as curious about Miro as he was about Gaold, leaned forward.
"So she snuck into the anatomy lab and took a cadaver. She only harvested tissue. Of course, getting caught would have meant expulsion, but she didn't care. She took it to a lab—there was a tank on the table, weird devices beside it, hoses tangled everywhere…"
Gaold waved his hands in exaggerated disgust, as if the details were beneath him.
"Yes, I can picture it."
"She started throwing all kinds of nasty things into the tank. It was a disgusting sight. I said I was leaving, but she held me back. Said she needed me for something. In the end, I couldn't get away."
It was hard to imagine Gaold—the sort of man who could intimidate the world with a glance—being helpless before Miro. The image made Shirone smile despite himself.
"When the preparations were done, Miro gave me a small cup. Then she said to collect semen."
"Cough! Cough!"
Of all things, Shirone choked on his tea at that line.
"So… did she—give you any?"
"Am I crazy? Of course I shouted no and ran out. But the next day she somehow obtained some—said she bought it. The experiment continued. When they boiled it down it turned into a revolting liquid. Miro called it primordial soup. I joked that if anything came out of that, I'd run through the school in nothing but my underwear."
Shirone smiled faintly. School life, it seemed, hadn't changed much.
"A month later I went back to the lab. Miro was completely beside herself—completely excited. I couldn't understand it. Did she really think something would come of it? I was just humoring her because she was so eccentric."
"Ha! Right."
At that moment the expression drained from Gaold's face.
"But there was something."
"…What?"
"The disgusting liquid had already dried. The tank was coated in sticky mucus. And inside was a creature I'd never seen before."
"Maybe she brought it from somewhere else…"
Gaold shook his head.
"No. I thought that at first too. But any creature a human imagines tends to follow patterns based on our knowledge. This was totally different. It had been born in an environment of its own."
Shirone could hardly believe it.
But Gaold's eyes were earnest. Even now, as a first-class archmage, his pupils still trembled with the shock of that memory.
"I can say for certain that if you had been there you'd have felt the same as I did. A sense of otherness from instinct, not reason. That creature was utterly alien."
"How did Miro manage to make that?"
Could a human actually create life? Humanity had only reached mobile magical constructs like harvesters at best. Nobody really called a harvester a living thing.
"Miro kept quiet about it. She begged me never to tell anyone what happened. But now I can make a rough guess. Miro was the world's greatest scale mage. In a space she created herself, she could probably fast-forward time by millions of years."
"You mean she evolved a primitive organism?"
"Maybe. But that's not the point. The important thing is I ended up running through the school in my underwear. Because of that, I was branded a pervert."
'That doesn't matter at all,' Shirone thought, swallowing the remark.
Gaold chuckled, understanding Shirone's suppressed thought. He wasn't entirely joking.
"Miro knew the creature wouldn't live long. It died within a week. She cried a lot that day. You might ask why she made it if she knew that, but she was that strange. You couldn't predict her."
Shirone nodded. From Gaold's story alone, it was clear she wasn't ordinary.
"Not only did she create life—she was a genius of creation. She invented all manner of unexpected things. When I asked how, she said she could see them. Hearing a thing's name would make its principle pop into her head."
"Hear the name…?"
One thought flashed through Shirone's mind.
"Yes. Maybe she reached the Akashic Records. In any case, Miro quickly stood out in the magic community. She unlocked the Immortal Function long ago and thought she could twist spacetime with her own power. But she didn't care about fame or success. Her head was full of curiosity. That's how the Society for Supernatural Psychical Science was formed."
"Yes. I'm a member of that too."
Shirone felt a quiet pride in being part of it.
"Ha—congratulations on your messed-up life. There were three founding members: me, Miro, and an idiot named Sein."
"Sein is the one with servant syndrome, right? The one who made Istas's master key."
"Yeah… not exactly someone I particularly like."
Gaold skipped the rest with a single line. Shirone, who wanted to know where Sein was now, felt disappointed.
"And… now comes a first-class secret you need to hear."
Gaold's expression hardened and Shirone swallowed.
"In the end, Miro's genius drove things to the worst possible outcome. The twelve most powerful lords in the world—the so-called Seongjeon—began watching Miro. They'd been observing heaven for a long time. That led to the Seongjeon's creation of the Valkyrie army."
Shirone's face darkened. The reason King Orcampf of Kazra had summoned him had been to use Ataraxia to exert influence within the Valkyries.
"Realizing the final war was near, the Seongjeon sought a successor to Geffin. In that process, Miro was chosen. A promising girl suddenly became humanity's bulwark. Can you imagine? To be condemned to a fate of never aging and never dying, trapped forever in your own world?"
Shirone couldn't bring himself to answer.
"At last a trial was held before the world's most famous leaders—the day they call the Trial of Twenty. First-class envoys of the Empire, the pope of the Rami Church, living saints, heads of human-rights groups. To keep balance, Alpheas—Miro's mentor—and Olivia, inspector of the Tormia Kingdom's church, were also given votes. The result: sixteen for, one against, three abstentions. In the end, they decided Miro must leave the world."
"How could they do that…?"
To Miro, it must have been a choice between humanity's life and her own. Even if she chose voluntarily, doubts would remain. For only twenty people to decide to end someone's life was unconscionable.
"Yes. To me the whole process was terribly complicated, but the world moved with terrible simplicity. Faced with the proposition that one sacrifice would save all of humanity, no one dared oppose it. After a few chaotic days, the day of her departure came. And Miro…"
Gaold's voice choked off and then cut out entirely. He stared into empty space as if dazed.
His breathing grew ragged and veins stood out in his eyes. Tears gathered in those eyes—an odd contrast with his hard face.
-Please save Miro! I have lived my life as a servant of God with no shame! I'll give my soul! Please, spare Miro...!
-Was your name Gaold?
-Please... grant divine grace to this young servant! Divine mercy...!
-God will forgive us as well.
Shirone looked around in alarm. Instruments in the room rattled and trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
'What is this?'
Turning back to Gaold, Shirone's breath caught. A storm of emotion churned in Gaold's tearless eyes—an intensity that made the air feel different.
The scenery shifted and a vast blaze flared up.
It was an oppressiveness of a different order from what he'd felt in the bunker. The difference now was that Gaold himself stood in that hell.
Gaold's eyes rolled back until the whites showed. His face contorted, his lips curled grotesquely, teeth bared.
'Ugh! This is too much.'
He was holding himself together with an embodiment spell, but the force was physical—not just mental. If it continued, the 18th floor might explode.
Kangnan's low, sharp voice cut through the inferno.
"Guildmaster."
As if on cue, the hellish vision vanished. Gaold blinked and seemed to come back to himself.
Only then could Shirone breathe. He hadn't even realized his clothes were soaked in cold sweat.
Gaold slouched back into the sofa as if nothing had happened. But no more would be said about the Trial of Twenty.
"In any case, Miro left the world. After that day I planned one project, and now it's only a matter of making it happen. That's why I called you."
Shirone calmed his racing heart and prepared to listen. Gaold watched him for a moment, then suddenly sat up and leaned in.
"I will destroy Miro's spacetime."
"..."
Shirone took in Gaold's words and parsed their meaning. Once he understood, the chill that ran through him was far worse than his initial shock.
"You mean you'll destroy Miro's spacetime?"
From Gaold's position, wanting to retrieve Miro made sense.
But if that happened… the world would be set on a path to ruin.
"If Miro's spacetime disappears…"
"Yes. Heaven's armies will come. Eight archangels, dozens of seraphim, hundreds of fallen angels, thousands of maras, giants and fae, ancient magics, schemas, citizens armed with mecha weapons. No matter who wins, our world will be razed. That's what I'm telling you."
Gaold did not flinch from the truth. His resolve, unshaken for twenty years, would not waver now.
Shirone rubbed his face with both hands. The fact that his worry had become reality was suffocating. No—this was far larger than he'd expected.
It meant putting every living thing in this world on the line to rescue one woman. He didn't panic or make a scene; faced with an unbearable problem, his mind went even colder.
"Is there a way?"
If Gaold could have brought Miro back already, he would have. There had to be some condition that made it extremely difficult.
"Of course there is."
Gaold smiled, pleased. Seeing Shirone keep his focus in any situation made him trust him more than before.