[797] Complex (2)
Pony narrowed her eyes and asked again.
"What do you mean, someone who's gone strange?"
"There could be a terrorist mixed in among them."
Pony also knew what ability the terrorists' out-of-regulation tactic was based on.
"Is that possible? There wasn't that kind of gap to try something. Security was really tight."
Pony wasn't weak, but the terrorists' skill far exceeded what she'd expected.
"They might have changed after they got to the venue. Anything stand out to you?"
Pony looked back toward the door.
"There are too many oddities to count. Everyone was shaken by what happened yesterday. Some force themselves to act cheerful, others the opposite..."
Of course.
"If they swapped faces, you couldn't tell. Their eyes would look a little dazed, too."
If hostages were in their right minds, they would have screamed the moment their bodies changed.
"There's one person who's been unusually quiet since this morning."
"Who?"
Pony searched her memory.
"As of nine a.m., three people haven't said a word: Miss Viden, Miss Nam Aimonde, and Miss Yakma."
"Hm—three."
"Wouldn't it be easier to compare heights? Even with faces swapped, the bodies belong to the terrorists. How accurately can you tell by eye?"
"About plus-or-minus 0.3 centimeters. But the terrorists are covering their faces, so I can't get a precise height."
"So we have to find them directly. How about I call them out one by one?"
Shirone shook his head.
"Too risky. The women taken hostage could get hurt, and if one of them panics and lashes out in despair..."
"What then?"
"Swapping faces is a precise operation. There's bound to be a Hidden Piece nearby. I'll search for it—watch the participants' movements."
"All right. I'll go in now. Don't stall or we'll arouse suspicion."
As Shirone ran down the corridor, Pony changed her expression and opened the waiting room door.
The contestants tilted their heads.
"Oh—Shirone-san?"
"I told him to wait outside and sent him away."
"Why? He could've stayed with us."
"Hah, I'll pass. I'm not changing in front of my classmates—no way."
She brushed off further questions and went to change into her swimsuit; no one suspected a thing.
Can I make the time?
It was five minutes before the contest began.
An ability that divides the space within a radius into specific segments. It had to be inside the building.
Shirone's focus fell on a radius within a hundred meters.
I wish I could use quantum superposition.
Just as you can't unsee what your eyes show you, he couldn't drop his evolved resonant senses to ignorance.
Then—
It was a completely different world. In Shirone's world, human will could alter the future.
Time Vibration!
Vibrating one second, Shirone searched every room in range during the repeating interval.
"Not here! Not here either!"
That single second stretched out endlessly.
After sweeping the whole building and returning to the waiting room, the contestants had already left for the arena.
No. It can't be missing.
There were only two possibilities.
Either it really wasn't here, or the target was moving.
But if the target were moving that fast, it would have been picked up in the Spirit Zone.
Damn it!
At the roar from outside the arena, Shirone finally stepped out of the building.
Twenty seconds later, the air where Shirone had been solidified into diamond and took human form.
Adamantine Immobility.
With a puff and scattering powder, Hye appeared, holding a hostage in one arm.
As long as I have no thought, they can't sense me through the Spirit Zone.
An ability that manifested phenomenal nothingness.
Though Hye couldn't move either, there was no way to find him while he was in the adamantine immobility state.
"Master, is this really right?"
Belonging to the immortals' community, he had to obey orders, but taking hostages was not the way of a believer.
What meaning does a Dao without purpose hold?
The hostage wearing Mortasinger's face beneath a cloth twitched as if coming out of hypnosis.
"Grow a little more."
Hye laid a hand on the woman's solar plexus and murmured; her convulsions stopped as if by a spell.
"Wow, fewer than yesterday, but still a lot, huh?"
Definitely fewer than yesterday, but over a hundred people still filled the front rows.
Rangi said, "I heard the Arakne government sent troops specifically for the contest. Besides, swimsuit judging is the highlight."
Opportunities to see the world's most beautiful women in swimsuits didn't come often.
"Miss Arakne! I'm Barho Rangi!"
The crowd was intense; when Rangi appeared, a hot cheer exploded.
"Wow! Truly the best! Rangi!"
Rangi's body, honed for a year for today, looked unreal in its beauty.
"Now we'll have a Q&A. Why did you enter the Miss World contest?"
"I've been interested in world peace since I was a child. The people marginalized by society, and—"
The audience watched with their eyes more than their ears, so Rangi gave the standard answer.
Pony! How's it going?
Shirone, who had gone into the stands, exchanged a look with Pony, but she shook her head.
I don't know. Is she really here?
The murderous intent was real.
"Miss Viden! I'm Maroni Adelka!"
Pony subtly nodded.
Watch her. She's a primary suspect.
Bright and carefree, the woman who had freely approached Pony had been silent since the terror.
"You look wonderful today. What's your favorite food, Adelka? And why?"
Standing with a somber expression, she suddenly began to cry and spoke.
"I want... to go home."
"Pardon? Adelka?"
"I'm so scared. I don't want to die. The terror—please just send me home."
When the staff signaled to cut her off, the emcee moved on immediately.
"It seems Miss Viden is very nervous. Let's bring up the next contestant."
Watching Adelka return in tears, Shirone's mind churned.
It's not Viden. Then who?
Narrowed down to two suspects, Miss Yakma stepped onto the stage.
"Now, then—"
Before the emcee could finish, she raised both hands to her face and splayed her fingernails.
It's her!
At the same moment a brutal murderous aura flared, the fingernails clawed fiercely across a face.
"Kyaaa! It hurts! It hurts!"
Coming to her senses, Miss Yakma screamed as she realized another face had been attached to someone else's body.
The audience leapt up, the out-of-regulation Hidden Piece activated, and the space twisted into chaos.
Now!
Shirone, waiting in advance, used his temporal sense to vibrate one second.
I have to kill her!
As Shirone threw himself toward the moment before the face was clawed—
What...!
Faster than him, Mortasinger's two hands smashed Miss Yakma's skull.
Only one second?
Mortasinger, hidden inside Hye's adamantine immobility, showed a faint smile.
Damn! Again!
He rewound to one second earlier after seeing the result, but again Miss Yakma's face was destroyed without fail.
She did it on purpose.
She'd known he would vibrate one second and engineered that first incident to completely fill that second.
By pushing out the perceived timeframe, no matter how Shirone vibrated that one second, the event that killed Miss Yakma would not change.
What now? Even if you kill me, you can't save the hostages. And if you can't kill me...
He'll slaughter everyone in the arena.
One life versus the lives of the many. You can't weigh either—that's Yahweh. You can do nothing.
Realizing Mortasinger's plan from the night before, Shirone stopped Time Vibration.
"Damn."
Mortasinger stood tall with his face blown apart—a grisly sight.
"Aaah! Help! Terror!"
Pony immediately cast a spell, but the Hidden Piece activated and upended sky and ground.
"Save the people—!"
Kuuuuuuuung!
When the effect was canceled in that state, people were buried into the earth and their screams were cut off like a blade.
"Mortasinger-nim."
Hye revealed himself, and Mortasinger's face—covered by cloth—was restored to the faceless body.
"Kakaka! Kakakakaka!"
As the Parrot Mercenary Corps, pushed out of the out-of-regulation radius, rushed forward, Boridalma stepped in front of them.
"Adamantine Palm!"
When Boridalma thrust out his hand, the air compressed into the shape of a giant palm and halted their advance.
Mortasinger pointed at Shirone.
"So? Clear now? Yahweh or whatever—touch the Tenfold Meeting and this is what happens."
"..."
Shirone's eyes were icy.
"I will never forgive you."
"Is that so? Fine. But no matter how great a Yahweh you are, you can't bring back the dead. I won."
"Ataraxia."
A massive halo burst like thunder, and iridescent information coalesced.
"Hohoho! Kill them! Still, I won! All the pretty things in the world are dead!"
"...The Corporeal Realm."
An unpredictable spell, but enraged, Shirone sliced through the amplification magic circle without hesitation.
"Ughhh!"
His temporal sense expanded immensely, numbing the nine senses tied to the single time that existed in the universe.
"AAAAAAH!"
He then vibrated that with Time Vibration.
I can hold it!
The timeline shook with a plus-or-minus thirty-minute amplitude and events began to flow in reverse.
Thirty minutes earlier.
"Huff! Huff!"
At the entrance to the arena building, Shirone crouched with a hand on the ground, breathing hard.
So that's how it is.
Whether one second or one hour, Time Vibration was a phenomenon that reinitialized a localized time zone.
If I can bounce it back to the starting point of time...
A reset.
Only an administrator with ten-stage null senses could do that by right.
Even with the Corporeal Realm, at best an hour.
He still had no sense of how to perfectly initialize time.
First, save the people.
Time is space.
He couldn't cover every space, but within a resonant hour he could save those in the arena.
The culprit is Miss Yakma.
If he killed the terrorist, he could prevent mass slaughter, but he couldn't save the hostages she'd taken.
The one-armed monk was holding them. From the ability, it looked like the target was nonexistence rather than movement.
Still nothing showed on the Spirit Zone.
Let's prod and see how she reacts.
Comforted by the fact this was only the first vibration, Shirone approached the waiting room door.
"I'm coming in."
Knowing it was already open, Shirone shoved the door and stepped inside; the contestants popped confetti.
"Surprise!"
Paper dust fluttered as the bangs went off, but Shirone didn't blink.
"Surprised? This is the welcome we prepared! Come on in!"
He let himself be tugged forward by a hand on his wrist, and in his line of sight he caught Miss Yakma's indifferent face.