[590] The Incident of That Day (1)
The twelfth island of the Mediterranean: the Roblang Kingdom.
This small nation of 700,000 boasted scenery so beautiful that seventy percent of its people worked in tourism.
At one of the hotels there — a world-class resort and a tax haven for the rich — a secret gathering of well-known politicians was taking place.
Marika Hotel, basement level two, tavern.
"Paré!"
Six tables had been pushed together and fourteen people were raising their glasses.
At the center of it all was the most famous person in the world whose identity remained unknown: Miro.
"One more round!"
"Are you challenging us?"
"Of course. I'm not done yet!"
When Miro raised her hand boldly, the men burst out laughing.
"This lady sure can hold her liquor. Nice! Kadun, pour another round."
"Leave it to me!"
A man called Kadun climbed onto the table and, with two bottles in his hands, tipped them like twin waterfalls. Two different liquids foamed as they filled the glasses; when Miro seized an empty cup, the room fell silent.
Every time Miro gulped, the crowd watched with rapt attention.
When the last swallow went down, everyone leapt to their feet. Miro slammed her cup down with a bang, stepped up onto two chairs, pulled her fist to her hip and shouted.
"Paré!"
The tavern thundered with the shout of fourteen voices.
"Living the high life, Miro."
"Huh?"
Miro turned and saw Sein, who had somehow come into the tavern. Her face brightened.
"Wow, my friend! What brings you here?"
She looked tipsy; a flush had bloomed on her cheeks.
"Paré!"
Someone else had downed a shot.
Hearing the cheers through the wall, Miro flopped onto a seat.
"Ah, I'm getting drunk. Maybe I drank too much polka."
She didn't even care what polka actually was.
"Is the matter progressing properly?"
Sein asked. Miro pointed at the ceiling.
"They're on the fourteenth floor. Looks like the talks are dragging on. I think it'll take another two days to conclude."
Sein pulled out a chair and sat.
"It's fine to enjoy yourself, but be careful. There are a lot of people who target you."
"Heh heh, who would dare take me on?"
There might be only a handful of people in the world capable of harming Miro, but seeing her so disheveled made Sein uneasy.
'Well, she was imprisoned for twenty years.'
It seemed Miro's free-spirited nature had finally exploded out of control.
'Maybe the world's greatest brat has been let loose.'
Miro asked, "So what happened? You came all this way. Is there some kind of problem?"
"A bit. Fermi visited me."
Miro gave a smile that was hard to read.
"He took the blueprints for Istas. Including the design that contains Guphin's Door."
"Hah, I knew he'd do that."
"I did send them to Armin like you said, but are you sure that was okay?"
"Of course. What could go wrong?"
"A time-space structure of infinite circulation. It's the incident Guphin tried to protect at all costs. If an external factor interferes and twists the event, the world could be destroyed."
Despite the terrifying words, Miro remained silent.
"What kind of incident exactly? Something that happened at Istas?"
"I don't know."
Sein tilted his head.
"You don't?"
"I experienced something at Istas. But it's not in my memory. It vanished along with Guphin's erasure. Only now, having experienced the world, can I hazily speculate."
"Is that why you didn't act directly?"
"On the upper levels of Istas is the me from nineteen years ago. If the incident gets twisted in any way, the world won't be what we knew. That's why I told Fermi to take the blueprints."
Miro's gaze softened.
"If the history of the world is going to be warped anyway, then destroying it is a matter for those involved."
"Is Shirone included among those involved?"
"Possibly."
Sein thought for a moment and asked, "Who is Shirone? Guphin's bloodline?"
"I don't know. The only one who knows the answer is the me from nineteen years ago."
Sein poured a drink and handed it to Miro.
"You're not running away, are you?"
Miro raised an eyebrow as she took the glass.
"Running away?"
"Yolga."
"I told you. I don't have the memories from that time."
"But you must remember before you entered the upper levels, right?"
Sein pressed.
"Yeah."
Miro pictured Yolga's face.
"She was lovely, kind, just a really good person. Who in the world could hate Yolga?"
"Then she disappeared."
Sein leaned in.
"How likely is it that you killed her?"
"Heh heh, you really want to know that?"
"I'm just worried about you. Why did Guphin choose you and not Yolga? If she was such a good person—"
"Because she was a good person."
Miro drained the strong liquor in one gulp.
"Maybe I did kill her. But even if I could turn back time, my judgment would be the same."
All trace of drunkenness left Miro's eyes as she looked at Sein.
"If someone deserved to die, I'd have killed them. It was right for Guphin's successor to be me."
* * *
The graduating class was bustling early in the morning.
Participants who had finished the Scramble Royal reentered fierce competition, and only a few left the school for personal reasons.
Notable among them were Neid and Kaiden.
The winning team was determined to make up for their seven-day absence, and the losing team quietly prepared alternatives to keep their score below Neid's.
'Just keep it lower until the graduation exam. One point behind Neid is the best result.'
The problem was nobody knew when Neid would return.
"Don't worry. He just needs time to think."
Iruki, Amy's closest friend, reassured her.
Meanwhile, Shirone, who had refused evaluation, left his dorm early and arrived at the meeting place.
Anchal, without his blindfold, was waiting.
"Did you unseal it?"
"I brought the magic sealing-eye for that. Where's Armand?"
Shirone answered by showing the Cubrick.
"Now tell me. What do you mean there's a Guphin on the upper levels?"
"I'll explain on the way."
When Anchal turned toward Istas, Shirone refused.
"No. I want the explanation first. Coming along is after that."
Anchal checked the time and turned back.
"Fine. It's a matter that could cost you your life."
Anchal reconstructed and recounted a possible scenario from Istas nineteen years ago.
"Guphin... was here?"
"Isn't that obvious? You saw Guphin's Door yourself."
Even so, hearing it made it hard to grasp.
A person erased from everyone's memories was, merely nineteen years ago, a mage known to the whole world — that gap couldn't be closed easily.
"It is presumed that among those who lay in ambush at Istas to pursue Miro were Yolga and her party."
"Yolga?"
"Fermi's mother."
"Oh...."
"One confirmed fact is that the Kingdom of Tormia secretly sent forces to kill Miro. A secret unit under the Gimu Corps: the Mars squad. Each member a deadly assassin."
Shirone recalled the scene he'd seen at Istas through the Sibulsangpokmae.
"There were definitely... marks of the Tormia Kingdom."
"The upper levels of Istas don't open unless very specific conditions are met. But your ability to control time ignores those conditions and brought past events to the surface. That should be helpful in some way."
Anchal's last question was blunt.
"Are you coming? My explanation ends here."
Shirone, who had been lost in thought, finally raised his head.
* * *
Rumble! Rumble!
Among the eighty-nine buildings of Istas that shifted their structures like rolling thunder, Fermi and Lycan were talking.
"The upper levels only open in a specific configuration. In the end, you'll need a Stop magic."
"Very meticulous."
"Not just meticulous. It wasn't designed to be explored in the first place."
"A time loop of infinite cycles."
Lycan still couldn't treat it as reality.
"If that really exists, you could own everything in the world."
What interested him wasn't the Istas incident but time itself.
"Right. The incident repeats. We're no exception. Therefore—"
Fermi tossed a crimson orb.
"Objects can be copied any number of times."
Lycan snatched the orb and frowned.
"Didn't you say it's worth ten billion gold?"
"It is ten billion gold."
"This? It doesn't look like a jewel. Is it an objet?"
"Right. . I bought it at the Curia auction for twice the market price."
"Twice? That's a loss. The price of an objet is high because of rarity. If you duplicate it—"
"Normally, yes. But is an exception. If its holder is in danger it emits a sound to warn them. It's a consumable tied to life; if you replicated it into hundreds, you'd make a fortune in no time."
"Hmm, I see."
Lycan nodded with satisfaction.
"Follow the set coordinates, move, then return to this warehouse and lock them in the safe."
Fermi pointed to a sturdy safe.
"Each repetition of the incident stacks them up. But be careful. The people tied to this incident are no joke. It's best to bypass the space."
"Heh heh, doesn't matter."
Lycan pulled a rubbery mask up over his nose.
'Skill is guaranteed.'
The heir of the Gunjo Bedyum family, reputed the Black Line's deadliest hitman, was Gunjo Lycan.
With that trust, Fermi asked, "What will you do with the big money?"
"Charity."
"Haha! What?"
To Fermi, Lycan seemed a worse kind of villain than himself.
"It's fun, isn't it? A villain philanthropist. Slap those smooth-talking hypocrites who act noble."
Lycan cracked his neck.
"Do you know why people think they're always right? Because of their damn imagination. They picture having done things they've never experienced."
Fermi listened, intrigued.
"In imagination you can cut off your own leg to avoid death. But in reality, if you hand them a saw they can't even put it to their ankle. That's the flaw of imagination: the absence of real pain."
Lycan didn't indulge in empty imagination.
"I do contract killings, but I won't pretend it's noble. If I kill someone, others can kill me in return."
"That's the social contract."
"But my father fed our family with contract killings. If people hadn't killed for our sake, I'd be worse off."
"That doesn't mean everyone commits murder."
"It's not that no one does. The point is, if you won't take on my pain for me, shut up. Don't indulge your pathetic imagination."
Fermi smiled.
"You're a villain, Lycan."
"Heh heh, that's why I like you. From the start I thought if I worked with you we'd make a fortune."
"Move out, Electric Monster."
Electricity flowed through Lycan's body with a crackle, and he vanished in an instant.
"Then shall we get started?"
Fermi left the warehouse after confirming the Istas structure had stopped.
He began casting Stop magic.
* * *
"The structure has shifted."
Shirone muttered with a grave expression as he arrived at Istas with Anchal.
It hadn't just changed; it was a configuration he'd seen before.
'It's the layout from when Guphin's Door opened.'
"Looks like Fermi's already gone in."
Anchal scrutinized Istas' details and turned to Shirone.
"Are you prepared? Once you step in, you might not be able to return."
Shirone swallowed and nodded.
"Alright. Then let's begin."
The warehouse doors opened and the two of them stepped in slowly.
This was an incident that actually existed nineteen years ago but had been erased from everyone's memory.
A record of two hours and forty-eight minutes.