[420] In Heaven (2)
The cheers outside were cut off as if waking from a dream the moment the command headquarters doors closed behind them.
The lights along the corridor ceiling were kept to a bare minimum, and soldiers stood guard at precise intervals.
Armed with Mecha combat system level 1, they didn't so much as glance back at Shirone's group. Still, the force of their stares was enough to pierce a wall.
'All elite soldiers.'
The Mecha had neither superhuman bodies nor magical powers, but their technology made up for both.
In war, victory is what matters. It was a mistake to assume that weak bodies meant weak overall power.
The colonel led Shirone's party down into an underground bunker.
Its security systems were in no way inferior to the Association's, and when the iron door opened countless machines came to life.
Technicians watched monitors and moved busily, while a man in a commander's cloak stood with his hands clasped behind his back observing their work.
"Commander, we have brought Shirone."
At the colonel's words the commander turned.
He was a man in his late twenties with a long scar running from his temple to beside his ear. His thin lips were pressed together, and behind his glasses his eyes were icy and intense.
He was Krude, First Commander of the Rebel Army.
As Kanya had said, he was young.
In a war—especially one that was going badly—age hardly mattered. Soldiers wanted a commander who had the courage to throw himself into death first and the tactical skill to save as many lives as possible.
Krude fit that profile exactly.
He was a genius pilot who knew everything about maintaining, piloting, and operating Titans in the Mecha level-3 combat system, and a Mecha war hero with a record of defeating a second-rank Mara.
"Are you Shirone?"
Krude extended his hand.
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Krude, First Commander of the Rebels."
"I'm Shirone."
Krude examined the group carefully.
With his extensive combat experience he could tell at a glance how powerful they were, yet his steady gaze did not waver.
But when he looked at Plu his expression softened, as if he'd reverted for a moment to the twenty-eight-year-old engineer who'd spent his life wrestling with machines.
Plu was small, with blue hair braided down to her waist and a crisp, no-nonsense manner. What stood out most were her eyes—she alone among them was wound tight with power, like a woman marching into battle for the first time.
But that was as far as the myth reached.
Krude also knew the legend of Shirone—the Light of District 73—but real war was too pragmatic to rely on myths.
"Let's go somewhere quiet."
Krude led them deeper into the bunker to the strategy room.
Of course there was no tea; they sat and immediately got to the point.
"I heard you wanted to meet me."
Sein took the negotiating seat as their representative.
"We're going to attack Heaven. We request the cooperation of the rebel command."
"We refuse."
Krude's answer was immediate.
"I heard there was friction with your battalion commander. A soldier whose spirit is broken is useless to us as well, but realistically speaking, launching a war right now is hopeless. Thinking you can attack Heaven because you quelled a faceless giant is delusion."
Sein nodded without protest.
He had been worried when he'd seen the dispirited battalion commander, but Krude was different.
"So you're not abandoning the war."
"I always leave room for ceasefires and compromises. I won't send those who trust me to die pointlessly. But I don't think Heaven will see us as a party to negotiate with. If we must fight, we must win to survive."
"And if I say there is a strategy that could win?"
"Hah—nonsense."
Even when the existing heretics and Heaven's refugees were added, the rebel forces numbered in the hundreds of thousands but had few notable victories. The Nor–Mecha alliance hadn't even taken down an ordinary angel, much less a third-rank Mara. What could they do with only ten extra humans?
"We'll disable the Aegis system with a Tagis. Then we can infiltrate Heaven and wage guerrilla warfare."
Aegis, Heaven's core air-defense system, sorted interception orders with two hundred search modes and could target seven thousand objectives simultaneously—an impregnable shield.
If they could blind that system and enter without bloodshed, the rebels would have a sliver of hope.
Krude covered his face, chuckling. Then he lowered his hand and stopped laughing.
"I don't know where you heard of this Tagis, but that's a technology already lost to the Mecha."
"Think sensibly. The angels wouldn't just leave a tech that can blind their interception system lying around. To revive it you'd have to access the Akashic Record. But to do that you first have to break Aegis. See? You've got the order reversed, idiot."
Sein leaned back and crossed his legs.
"What if… I actually have that technology?"
"What?"
Krude's face went blank.
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
"I can't assume that tech lost in Heaven is lost everywhere on the planet. I've spent twenty years traveling the world researching ancient war machines. I have a fully restored Tagis blueprint in my head. So? Is your head starting to turn now?"
Confusion began to show in Krude's eyes.
"If it's a lie—"
"I can restore it right now. I don't forget. You're an engineer too; once you see the plans you'll be convinced."
'I see. So that's why the Black Line…'
Shirone regarded Sein in a new light.
Ancient war machines were top-level secrets across kingdoms. Accessing that information risked execution, and Sein had done it to save Miro.
"Hmm…"
Krude grew more perplexed. Who were these people, and why would they attempt what hundreds of thousands of rebels could not?
No—the important question was whether it could succeed.
Even if they disabled Aegis and entered Heaven, angels, Maras, giants, and fairies awaited. To defeat them and reach Arabot where Anke Ra was would be like carrying gunpowder into a blaze.
Still, you could try. Even a one percent chance was worth it.
"There are three… conditions."
It was more than Shirone had expected, but the list actually reassured him. It showed Krude was treating the plan realistically.
"Start."
Krude counted on his fingers.
"First: use the Light of District 73—Shirone—to sway the Second Command. Even if we infiltrate Heaven, without Mecha and Nor united it's like striking an egg against a rock."
"Right. And the next?"
"Second: even with the plans, a large Tagis capable of affecting all of Heaven can't be built here. We'll need to borrow a mainland factory. Bring their permission."
Sein remembered their first meeting with the rebels.
"The military-industrial community?"
"Yeah. Specifically a defense conglomerate called 'Yameng.' They grew rapidly during Heaven's civil war and monopolized weapon production across the defense complexes. The rebels despise them, but without their resources a full-scale war against Heaven is impossible."
"Fine. And the last condition?"
Krude hesitated for the first time.
He didn't know how extraordinary Shirone's group might be, but building a Tagis wasn't a job for a single team.
"To manufacture a Tagis we'll probably need Black Elixir."
"Black Elixir?"
"Most lifeforms in Heaven draw the planet's Lifestream and generate elixirs in their bodies. There are five kinds: Red, Green, Yellow, White, and Black."
"Does it have to be Black? I thought elixirs could be substituted or altered by mixing ingredients and proportions."
"Each elixir has a unique effect. Red generates heat, Green governs biochemical elements, Yellow changes energy properties, White affects atmospheric elements. Heaven's rocks are so durable they don't weather even after tens of thousands of years. That's why an elixir that concentrates planetary power is necessary."
Krude pointed toward a storeroom.
"For example, smelting the metal for one Guroi requires eight thousand Red Elixirs, but adding White greatly increases thermal efficiency. White and Yellow together can even generate electricity. Elixirs are the means by which everything in this world is made."
Plu asked, "Then what does Black Elixir do?"
Krude glanced at Plu, then at Sein.
"Black Elixir, simply put, governs time."
"Time? Like magic?"
"No. More precisely, it makes irreversible phenomena reversible or accelerates them. Use Black Elixir on a liquid where ink and water are mixed and they'll separate back into ink and water. For burns you can use Black and Green to repair cellular damage."
"That can't be…"
Shirone found it impossible to believe. It broke the chemical laws he'd been taught.
Jullu asked, "When you say 'accelerate'?"
"It shortens reaction times. Green provides the basic elements for life; add Black and you can induce mutations. In some cases you can produce evolutionary outcomes thousands of years ahead."
Gaold said, "The Philosopher's Stone."
Shirone had heard the term before. Not common in magical circles, but among alchemists it was the dream material—able to turn iron into gold or cure incurable disease. Something that fanciful existed in Heaven.
'Could it be…?'
One scene flashed through Shirone's mind.
When Kanya's mother was used as the target of Ilhwa's ritual, a great glass sphere filled with black liquid.
A gruesome ritual that dissolved a human and poured them into a giant's statue, using it like a mold to cast the giant.
It had felt even crueller because the phenomenon was beyond his understanding—a black liquid that dissolves and recomposes living things.
If such a thing were possible here, Black Elixir, which defies chemical action, had to be involved.
Sein caught Krude's intent.
"You mean shorten the Tagis production process using the Philosopher's Stone? Is that what you're suggesting?"
"Exactly. You can make a Tagis with existing elixirs, but melting rock, extracting metal, and fusing it would take ages. We provide the equipment. Whether it's a Guroi or something else, we melt everything with Black Elixir and process the metals needed for the Tagis. Those are my three conditions."
Armin asked, "If we hunt and collect, what are the odds?"
Krude shook his head.
"Zero percent. Black Elixir isn't generated inside living bodies. Its elements come only from beings that have transcended time—namely, the dead."
Given that different species collect planetary energy differently, and considering the abnormality of the Philosopher's Stone, it was believable.
"There are undead in the eroded valley northwest of the mainland. But even if you kill a thousand of them you might get one. It's not even a 0.1 percent chance."
Gaold said flatly, "Then what do you expect us to do?"
"There is one place. A thirty—no, fifty percent chance to obtain Black Elixir."
Sein asked, "Where is it?"
Krude hesitated again. But having opened his mouth, he couldn't stop. He opened his eyes wide and spoke.
"Niflheim—the world of the dead."