234Th. □□ Flower (1)
Underground of the Allied Headquarters.
In the interrogation room deep down there, I was shocked.
I came to find Belphegor, but······.
“No way. Were you torturing him?”
“Yeah. He wouldn’t answer, so I had no choice.”
Various tools were scattered around.
And a furnace that was heating up.
This is definitely······.
“Aren’t these blacksmithing tools?”
“That’s right. Since it’s in the shape of a sword, this torture would be the most effective, right?”
Yerina looked at me, tilting her head as if asking what the problem was.
I was speechless for a moment.
No matter how much it’s in the shape of a sword, does it become torture just because it’s heated and hammered?
I almost laughed because it seemed like such a naive idea.
-Uwaaa! No! No! I hate blacksmithing anymore! Uwaaa! Stop hammering the back of the blade to make a double-edged sword! I don’t want to make a solid handle into a hidden handle anymore!!!-
“······.”
I thought so.
It seemed to be surprisingly effective.
I approached Belphegor, who was screaming and struggling while hanging from a rope, and untied him.
As soon as I held the magic sword in my hand, the shape that had been deformed by torture returned to the single-edged sword of Dakia-ryu swordsmanship.
“Thank you for your hard work. Thanks to you, I was able to regain my existence and be reborn safely.”
-Don’t lie to me! How did I help you! I just threw you away as a way to buy time and ran away!-
“······.”
It wasn’t wrong, but it wasn’t right either.
At the time, I did throw it away as a way to buy time.
But after hearing Yerina’s story, I learned that the reason Yerina suspected me as an ‘unrecognizable being’ was because she had obtained it while torturing Belphegor.
If Yerina hadn’t suspected me, I wouldn’t have been able to draw out the Frost-ryu secret technique, nor would I have been able to create the ultimate technique and recreate the inner world.
-You bastard······. Just give me back my free form-
“That seems difficult.”
-Why?!-
“It’s for your own good.”
-What does that mean?!-
Belphegor, who was chattering and nagging, was put into the scabbard.
When I covered the handle of the sword, only a slight buzzing vibration could be heard, and no sound could be heard.
If I suddenly transformed Belphegor in front of people who knew he was ugly······.
I don’t want to be glared at by Jill, Julia, and Yerina.
It’s a sensitive time right now, so it would be better to show him his true form later when I get the chance.
“Are you going to take the Great Demon?”
“Rather than taking it······. What should I say.”
“Give him a chance?”
“That’s right. A chance. A chance to suffer.”
“······.”
The present world is a more hellish place than the Demon World.
Satan said so.
Hell itself, where all kinds of injustice, hatred, and disgust boil.
But that’s why the world of justice, goodness, and love shines so preciously.
I returned to such a world, dragging Belphegor along.
And now I will give Belphegor a chance.
As much as he accelerated the hellfire of the present world, he will have a chance to reverse it.
It’s easy to spill water, but it’s hard to pick it up again.
Perhaps Belphegor will have to put in hundreds, thousands of times more effort than he has ruined the present world.Knowing full well the judgment that awaits a soul that has run its course in the underworld, Beelzebub had no choice but to do his best.
“Yerina. Can you please call a meeting?”
“Sure. Then the Union executives-“
“No. Just the four of us: you, Jill, Julia, and me. The others still can’t be completely ruled out as potential traitors.”
“······!”
It may sound a bit cruel.
The only ones I could be sure were not 100 percent traitors were those who had seen the very essence of my being.
.
.
.
“Do you know where the Saintess is? I need to report to her, but she’s not at her post······.”
“Shhh. Report later. Unless it’s urgent.”
“It’s just a routine report that nothing’s wrong······. If I don’t report it, I’ll be subject to military law.”
“Oh, be careful. There’s something more important going on than military law.”
“What on earth is going on?”
The chief of staff hesitated for a moment before the young officer who had just begun to show his military bearing.
How should I explain this?
I guess I should just tell him the truth.
“Sir Eugene has entered the bedchamber with the Saintess, the Witch, and the Frost Monarch. Various barriers have been deployed around the bedchamber.”
“What······.”
The officer’s face flushed red.
The man who had been crying, blowing, and making a scene while being hugged by three women had entered a room with all three of them?
And even deployed barriers?
I didn’t need to see it to know what was going on.
Then, suddenly, the officer noticed that one name was missing and turned his gaze to the side.
There, Cornelia Briam, the mayor, stood with a dark expression in front of a tightly closed door.
She was Eugene’s fiancee.
“It’s a battlefield in there······.”
“Yes. It’s better not to bother them until the door opens.”
The young officer and the chief of staff quietly left the area.
Meanwhile, inside the barrier-enclosed bedroom.
A room with fragrant incense and a large bed······ It was now a room where the bed had been removed and a large map was being illuminated by bright lights.
The expressions of Jill, Julia, Yerina, and Eugene, who were gathered around it, were all very serious.
“So, is it likely that Linda’s betrayal was planned from the beginning?”
“100 percent. For sure. Linda hasn’t updated me once since I left. Since there was no need for her to receive external data, it means she wasn’t hacked in the meantime. She approached you with the intention of commanding you all, even before I disappeared, that is, before I made the contract with the Union.”
“······.”
The atmosphere became heavy.
The archive that had been destroyed by Eugene.
Traces of data being transmitted outside had been discovered there, a place that should have had no connection to the outside world other than the one-way communication network with the Union headquarters.
It was evidence that it had been built with the intention of stealing information from the Union from the very beginning.
Moreover, even if Linda had access to the communication network, was it possible for her to occupy the communication network on the entire continent at exactly the same time?
Considering that it takes time to send and receive communications, resulting in a delay, it was absolutely impossible.
Linda had planned the betrayal, set the execution time in advance, and synchronized the clocks in each location.
“An artificial soul’s error······ Do you think so?”
An artificial soul’s error.
It sounded plausible, but I had a strong feeling that it wasn’t the case.Linda, whom Eugene had last seen, had some resentment towards Kern, but it was not a universal hatred towards humanity.
But one day, she suddenly chose to self-harm and force-quit.
She mutated after being recovered and awakened by Kern.
Since there were no updates after that, the three-year gap is meaningless.
All the changes happened on the day she force-quitted.
[That day······. Are you talking about the day when all the powers in the present world were withdrawn?]
“Yes. Is there something bothering you?”
[I remember it clearly because it was so shocking. As the body closest to him, I had a field of vision that allowed me to see his powers to some extent. In the present world, all the powers were withdrawn, and a spectacle unfolded where countless rays of light rose towards the sky. And after a while, a huge mass of power poured down from the sky into one place.]
“······!”
Eugene’s eyes twisted.
Why did Draken withdraw all the powers?
Where did he use the withdrawn powers?
It was a simple story.
He wanted to concentrate the powers that were scattered throughout the present world in one place.
[And I can’t fully interpret his will, but······. From what I’ve understood here and there, he seemed to like and keep an eye on the northern clockwork machine.]
And the place where Draken poured out his powers that day must have been Linda.
He went all-in on his powers to gain control over Linda.
Linda, sensing the crisis, quickly chose to commit suicide to prevent her body from being taken away.
But by the time Linda was recovered and turned back on, she had already been taken over by Draken.
“Linda······ has been under Draken’s control all this time······?”
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Everyone’s faces turned pale.
Even Luna, who was acting as a cardinal, and Belphegor, who had demon contractors all over the country, were quite a handful.
But Linda, who had handled almost all of the Union’s information, was actually Draken’s minion.
It’s safe to say that Draken now knows almost everything about the Union.
The military’s strength, its vulnerabilities, everything.
From now on, it wouldn’t be strange for not just the airship fleet, but the entire military to betray and turn around.
“We’ll scrap all the pre-established operation plans. From now on, I’ll create anti-Draken tactics at my discretion, irregularly.”
Jill, Julia, and Yerina nodded silently and gathered closer.
Since all of their movements were being read, they had no choice but to rely on Eugene from now on.
.
.
.
[hehehehe······.]
Creak. Creak.
A low-quality mechanical sound was making a snorting noise.
The sound of a spring winding and a screw tightening rang out repeatedly.
Flesh-colored silicone was being covered over the clockwork machine that was just a skeleton.
Square by square, the flesh stuck to the body, repeating the process of cutting with scissors and gluing with adhesive.
When the prosthesis was inserted and finished with a heat gun, the area soon became indistinguishable from human skin.
[uuum······.]
Numerous eyeballs appeared in the open box.
The fingers, which had been moving back and forth as if in deep thought, picked out a brown eyeball and pushed it into the eye with a click.
Next, the wig, eyebrows, fingernails, toenails, etc······.
After completing the maintenance in order, the appearance of the clockwork machine reflected in the mirror was that of a graceful woman.
She had a plain appearance with black hair.
[hehehehe······.]With a satisfied smile, the machine dressed in a maid’s uniform turned around slowly.
Finally, after adjusting its vocal cords, the low-quality mechanical sound had changed into a soft girl voice.
If it weren’t for the fact that it couldn’t be cut by a sword, no one would have been able to tell that it was a wind-up machine.
[Hmm?]
At that moment, the doorbell rang with a ding-dong.
A stranger was standing in front of the door.
The wind-up machine locked the maintenance room door with a stiff expression and opened the door gently.
[The master is currently not home-]
“I found you.”
Creak!
At that moment, the wind-up machine lost its balance with a sharp sound.
In an instant, both legs were cut off and the wind-up machine fell to the ground.
Crimson blood gushed out of the tubes that played the role of blood vessels, which had been intricately fitted together.
[Aah! Euaaah! W, what are you doing?! Knights! I’m going to call the Knights!]
“······.”
However, the man simply cut off the wind-up machine’s arm without saying anything.
The cut surface was exposed, revealing the machinery inside.
As the wind-up machine looked up with a face covered in tears and snot.
Eugene took off his mask and murmured.
“Main body.”