[273] 1. Hostile Friendship (2)
He approached Shirone and offered his hand.
"I must be off now. I can't be away long. Since you're an Unlocker, Shirone, it'll help you as a Unique in mage society to know about matters like these."
Shirone quickly clasped Arius's hand.
"Yes. That was very helpful. Thank you."
"Haha! No need for thanks. From now on I intend to excavate your Ataraxia."
Arius wore a cold smile, but Shirone couldn't see it. He had already slipped into sleep, his head bowed deep.
High-level sleep magic severs consciousness cleanly, cutting mental waves so neatly the target doesn't even notice the break. Even if Shirone's awareness resurfaced and latched onto the missing memories, he wouldn't find anything strange.
"Shall we begin, then."
Arius was a Scale mage who specialized in mental arts, wielding a magic called Dive that penetrates the human mind.
Of the twelve layers of the human psyche, anything could be breached except the twelfth shell layer—the realm of intellect.
But the human mind is such a dangerous environment that diving carelessly could cost you more lives than you'd ever have. So most divers cast a net from the surface to pull up only the information they want; the key instrument for that is the keyword.
Having stealthily injected a keyword into Shirone to evoke the impression of Ataraxia, Arius rotated his hips and stretched before casting the Dive.
Even now, dozens of divers lose their lives each year to the human mind, but true to being one of the Seven Great Mages, he didn't hesitate.
"Dive. Ataraxia."
A detachable-form Spirit Zone contracted to an extreme scale and penetrated Shirone's mind. At the same moment, Arius's body vanished from the antechamber.
He reappeared about five minutes later. He was kneeling, drenched in sweat as if he had just come up from underwater.
Arius caught his breath and rose slowly. He stared at Shirone with a long, uneasy expression, then took a step—just as a warder's voice called from outside the door.
"Shirone, the hearing will begin shortly. Please enter."
Arius clicked his tongue and activated Flicker, a signature trick of Scale mages, and disappeared from the antechamber.
"Huh?"
Shirone blinked and looked around.
He'd slept for five minutes, but his consciousness had been sliced so cleanly that those five minutes were effectively nonexistent.
In that severed-and-stitched state of awareness, the only plausible conclusion was that Arius had suddenly vanished while they were shaking hands.
"How elusive he is. Then again, Armin was the same."
When no answer came from Shirone, the warder opened the door and entered.
"Shirone, you must come now."
"Ah, sorry. I'll go right away."
Shirone followed the warder into the courtroom.
Prominent nobles from Kazra sat in the jury seats, and two chairs were placed side by side beneath the judge's dais.
Where evidence would normally be kept, various devices were lined up; an alchemist and a mage were inspecting them.
Shirone took the right-hand chair and waited. A loud shout came from outside the courtroom and the doors opened.
"His Highness Orcamp arrives!"
The nobles stood as Orcamp strode in confidently.
He ignored the other nobles and checked Shirone's condition. Arius had likely already made contact, but whether he'd succeeded in replicating Ataraxia was unknown.
"Begin."
When Arius, seated beside Shirone, signaled, the judge proceeded with the examination.
A mage drew blood from both men with syringes.
The moment the needle pierced the king's skin, the courtroom chilled.
After Shirone's blood was taken, the alchemist mixed the two samples with a substance called Oxstamine. When the beaker was shaken, the liquid changed from deep purple to clear like water.
The alchemist explained, "The blood mixed with Oxstamine will be kept in a vacuum for three days. A positive reaction means parentage; a negative reaction means otherwise."
When the alchemist handed over the samples, the judge placed them into an alchemical chest called a Caspi.
As the lid closed, the air was expelled and a vacuum formed.
Since any air intrusion would destroy it, this method was perfect for secure tests.
Holding the Caspi aloft, the judge announced, "This Caspi will be placed in the vault and set in the inner castle garden. The royal castle guard will watch it twenty-four hours a day, and any noble with access to the inner castle may inspect it at any time. Crossing the access line is strictly forbidden. If an additional watcher is appointed, their identity must be registered within one hour."
Shirone nodded in agreement with the audit department's decision.
Exposing the vault to many eyes turns them into mutual overseers, leaving no room for trickery.
"This concludes the examination regarding the verification of the First Prince of the Kazra Kingdom."
The judge brought down the gavel and the procedure ended.
Orcamp left the courtroom briskly, as if he had pressing matters, without even a word of thanks to Shirone.
Shirone, who knew Orcamp's temperament, didn't mind. More pressing on his mind was that Reina hadn't contacted him since last night.
He understood she must be swamped with paperwork as his legal representative, which was also why he could be so idle. But that meant she'd brought Amy with her. However distant her quarters, no message at all was odd.
@
"Failed?"
Orcamp's face contorted.
It was the first time he'd heard that since hiring Arius. It was also something that must never happen.
He'd taken the risk of recruiting a Black Line criminal because he trusted his skill. And now—failure?
"Apologies. We succeeded in casting the net, but we could not replicate it."
Divers describe sinking into the unconscious depths to lift concepts with keywords as "casting a net."
"So what's the reason? Didn't you say keywords always work?"
"We could still replicate it now. It's just unnecessary."
"Unnecessary?"
Arius recalled the situation with a sour look.
"Ataraxia was encapsulated."
"Encapsulated? Is that a cipher?"
"No. A cipher is a rule. You write a hundred letters on a one-meter strip of paper, roll it around a piece of wood of a specific thickness, then read the letters reflected on one side. If a sentence appears, that's a cipher. Encapsulation, on the other hand… you write a clear sentence on a one-meter strip of paper and then crumple it up randomly. There's no pattern and nothing to unravel. What I saw wasn't Ataraxia itself but a cloud of information tangled like skeins of thread."
Arius raised a finger and continued.
"Then why is it unnecessary to replicate? A keyword makes a specific concept surface in the other party. For example: apples are delicious. That evokes apples in Your Highness's mind. But that's the apple you think of, not a perfect apple. A perfect apple exists in a pre-linguistic form within the unconscious. What keywords reveal are merely shadows. Usually that's enough, but when something is encapsulated like this, it's useless. Even if we duplicate the information cloud, it's still only an information cloud."
Orcamp couldn't blame Arius. He understood. To blame him would be to expose his own ignorance.
"So what will you do now? We need Ataraxia."
"First, speak with Shirone. To find a solution, I need to see Ataraxia myself. I have to determine what kind of information system it is and how it triggers. Only after gathering that information can I report. Of course, I left a door in place so we can enter again at any time."
"A demonstration of Ataraxia…."
Orcamp disliked Arius's suggestion.
Shirone was clever and likely suspected he'd been summoned to the castle for more than a simple paternity test.
If they brought up the original intent outright in such a situation, the damage to Shirone could be severe.
Orcamp was willing to bear the odium of being a despicable father if it protected the kingdom, but he wanted to avoid a situation where Shirone refused to cooperate.
"Isn't that too blatant? He'll definitely be suspicious."
"Your Highness, this concerns the succession of the First Prince. The Teraje faction will try to make their move within the three days while the test results are pending. If we don't use the advantage of having first negotiation rights with Shirone, the initiative will pass to Teraje."
Orcamp pondered carefully.
Would he embrace Shirone to the end, or use him and discard him? Either way, a quick decision was best.
"If we're going to do it, might as well make it grand."
Arius answered with a sly smile.
@
As Shirone headed for his parents' quarters, he stopped in the second-floor corridor. An attendant in Jion's service—the messenger of Jion—blocked the passage. It amazed him how they could find him so precisely in this vast castle.
"Shirone, you must come with me."
Shirone straightened and drew his chin in.
It wasn't likely to be a pleasant summons, but avoidance wasn't a good option.
Better to meet directly and read their reactions than to run and risk a blow to the back of the head.
"Lead the way."
"Excellent choice, sir. Please follow me."
The attendant led Shirone to the cellar. It was a storage-heavy area with little foot traffic, and the layout, perhaps due to frequent expansions, was labyrinthine.
They reached an outermost section where a door had been installed into the wall.
It was not a room that had originally existed.
"Here. Please enter."
Shirone kept his guard up and pulled the handle.
Instead of a room, a torchlit rectangular cave stretched out, and fifteen meters ahead another door stood.
A double set of doors.
It didn't look like a prank choice, but there was no convincing reason evident either.
Halfway through the cave, the attendant slammed the door behind them. It was clearly meant to alert someone of their approach.
Startled, Shirone froze, then took a deep breath and opened the second door.
The room was entirely white.
Not painted—the whole thing was marble, and shelves along the walls displayed various objects.
There was nothing particularly luxurious among them, but knowing Jion's tastes, the whole scene felt incongruous.
Jion and Woorin sat at the table drinking tea. Seeing Woorin eased him a little, but he quickly pushed the relief from his mind—such thoughts were dangerous.
"You're here. What are you standing for? Get in here."
Shirone hesitated. Jion and Woorin regarded him with mischievous eyes.
He couldn't stand in the doorway forever, so he planted his feet and moved forward as cautiously as he could.
At that moment, the floor gave way beneath him and he pitched forward.
"Ugh! What the—"
Shirone hastily lifted his head. The floor was soft, so there was no pain, but hearing Jion and Woorin laugh made his face burn with embarrassment.
'Why is the floor so spongy?'
Crawling a bit and feeling around, he found a solid edge where the floor transitioned.
"Are you all right, brother? Sorry for the joke. But wasn't it fun?"
Woorin stepped forward and offered a hand.
Shirone took her hand and rose, then looked back at the spot where he'd fallen. There was nothing to distinguish that patch from the rest of the floor.
"What is this?"
"."
"Soft—everywhere… what?"